


Kanril Eleya - STO Forum Literary Challenge Shorts

by StarSword, Worffan101



Series: Star Trek Online: Bait and Switch [1]
Category: Star Trek Online
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Cross-Posted on AlternateHistory.com, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Gun Violence, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Language, Military, Military Science Fiction, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Humor, Torture, Women in the Military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-07 16:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 92,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21460864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarSword/pseuds/StarSword, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Worffan101/pseuds/Worffan101
Summary: I created Kanril Eleya as my first toon in Star Trek Online. I first wrote her as the protagonist of a novelization of my Foundry mission "Bait and Switch, Part I". I never completed Part II, or that novelization, before the Foundry was shut down in mid-2019.Kanril Eleya is the daughter of a Bajoran Resistance fighter. She first enlisted in the Bajoran Militia, but then enrolled in Starfleet Academy after the Militia Space Arm was dissolved at the turn of the century. Heavily involved in the Klingon War, she eventually rose to the rank of captain shortly before the 2409 armistice, and was given command of the Galaxy-class battleship USS Bajor.I wrote several pieces of short fiction with her for the STO forum's literary challenges.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Star Trek Online: Bait and Switch [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547053
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Author's Notes

**Star Trek Online: Bait and Switch**

**Author's Notes:**

_Bait and Switch_ is best described a variant universe. It's fairly close to canon STO; however there are some major differences.

  * The events of _Star Trek: Enterprise_ just flat-out did not happen as depicted. Some of my backstory for that period is loosely borrowed from Thande's _Reimagined Enterprise_ series on AlternateHistory.com. NX-01 was historically commanded by a Taiwanese fellow named Chen Hwai. Jonathan Archer was aboard, but he was a United Earth ambassador-at-large. And he was played by Mike Colter, not Scott Bakula. 
    * The closest thing to "Canon ENT" was a holodrama adaptation produced in the 2350s, one that managed to outdo _Braveheart_ and Frank Miller's _300 _for historical inaccuracy. This version is what Riker and Troi played in "These Are the Voyages..."
  * The events of _Star Trek: Picard_ did not happen due to this continuity predating it by several years and being completely incompatible. The other post-2015 TV series are only likely to be involved on a case-by-case basis in future installments.
  * Kanril Eleya cues off of the pre-Season 8 tutorial where the Starfleet PC was already a fully qualified officer; she held the rank of lieutenant (JG) during the Battle of Vega IX, which I moved to 2407.
  * The Iconian War ended with the Iconians bombing half the capitals in known space through their gates. The Allies responded by launching a last-ditch all-out assault on the Herald Sphere, **Operation Mockingbird**. Worffan101 and I have a story partially written explaining it more fully, but the upshot was, the Romulans used a supernova weapon of their own against the Iconia star itself, destroying the Dyson sphere outright. The war ultimately cost the lives of tens of billions of residents of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, and left billions more homeless. Starfleet was reduced from its prewar strength of approximately 72,000 ships to less than 30,000, with equivalent losses in personnel; none of the other major factions fared much better. 
    * During the bombings, Paris was destroyed and President Okeg killed along with most of the Federation Council. Ryoko Hibiki, the Councilor for United Earth, was running late that morning and ended up the seniormost surviving member. She was sworn in as interim president until a special election could be held, and won reelection with 51% of first-choice votes in early 2411. The Federation's temporary capital is Jerusalem.
  * The Temporal Cold War happened... in an alternate timeline that was so chaotic it became temporally unstable and erased itself from existence entirely.

I'll be listing these stories in in-universe chronological order. There are a couple longer or unfinished ones I'll put up separately.


	2. From Bajor to the Black, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanril Eleya enlists in the Bajoran Militia, but is put out of a job by the shutdown of the Space Arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "From Bajor to the Black" was for the prompt "In the Beginning" in Official Literary Challenge #66: The Xindi Paradox. This story will go up in two parts.

Originally from [Official Literary Challenge #66: "The Xindi Paradox"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1160746/literary-challenge-66-the-xindi-paradox).  
  


**From Bajor to the Black**

> _Just a small town girl  
Livin' in a lonely world  
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere  
Just a city boy  
Born and raised in south Detroit  
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere_
> 
> _A singer in a smoky room  
The smell of wine and cheap perfume  
For a smile they can share the night  
It goes on and on and on and on_
> 
> _Strangers waiting  
Up and down the boulevard  
Their shadows searching in the nights  
Street lights people  
Living just to find emotion  
Hiding somewhere in the nights_
> 
> __
> 
> _Working hard to get my fill  
Everybody wants a thrill  
Payin' anything to roll the dice  
Just one more time_
> 
> __
> 
> _Some will win, some will lose  
Some were born to sing the blues  
Oh, the movie never ends  
It goes on and on and on and on_
> 
> __
> 
> _Strangers waiting  
Up and down the boulevard  
Their shadows searching in the nights  
Street lights people  
Living just to find emotion  
Hiding somewhere in the nights_
> 
> __
> 
> _Don't stop believin'  
Hold on to that feelin'  
Street lights people  
Don't stop believin'  
Hold on to that feelin'_
> 
> __
> 
> _Street lights people  
Don't stop believin'  
Hold on to that feelin'  
Street lights people_  
[— “Don’t Stop Believin’”, Journey](http://youtu.be/VcjzHMhBtf0)

  
How’d I get here? How did I enter Starfleet? You really want to know?  
  
Nothing really Bajor-shaking, honestly. I didn’t have any relative who died gloriously in battle. Okay, yeah, my father fought in the Resistance, and _his_ father even died in the Kendra Valley Massacre, but Kanril Torvo made it out of the Occupation with his skin mostly intact and didn’t join the Militia afterward. And it wasn’t patriotism, I think, though that’s one of my reasons for staying nowadays.  
  
The lifestyle? Oh, Hell no! Let’s face it, it sucks a lot of the time. The “strange new worlds” they show you in the recruitment vids are the good days; the rest of them are “woohoo, another average star with a bunch of dead rocks orbiting it”. And I don’t like really like killing people, although I’m very good at it.  
  
You want to know how I ended up in Starfleet? This is how.  
  


* * *

  
_Satar 4, Seventh Era 943, Year of the Unseen Harp (June 8, 2397 Earth Standard)_  
  
This wasn’t the reaction I expected. Anger I could deal with. Acceptance would be great. Active support? Even better.  
  
Instead, the look of silent hurt on my boyfriend’s face just bores into my soul and breaks my heart.  
  
“Why?” That’s the only word he says.  
  
I let out a breath. “Because I want to.”  
  
“We had plans. Alhare University?”  
  
“Dammit, Tiho, that was _your_ plan. You got a guaranteed full ride to the temple schools because your uncle’s a vedek. I don’t have that luxury, and I don’t agree with their politics anyway. But I do my four and get out and I get my own guaranteed full ride, any public university on Bajor. And I want to be able to look back at my life and be able to say I had an adventure.”  
  
He scoffs. “You sound like a _phekk’ta_ recruitment ad.”  
  
“Militia’s the only adventure I get paid to go on. My folks can’t afford the public unis and all the temple schools around here push the Orthodox branch like it’s going out of style.”  
  
“Deal with it.”  
  
“I don’t have the patience, you should know that by now. It’s either the Militia or I spend the rest of my life running conduit. Hell, Father’s already having me help him on the job; he can’t move as well as he used to. I want more than that out of my life.”  
  
“Why don’t you tell me the truth? You just want to get out of Priyat, El.”  
  
“That a crime? This town’s dying. Half the town just lives here because it’s close to Kendra City.”  
  
“Look, just call the recruiter up, tell him you changed your mind. I’ll talk to my uncle—”  
  
“The scholarship’s only for relatives, you know that. I’m going Militia, Tiho.”  
  
“Then you’re going where I can’t follow.”  
  
I glare at him but he’s unmoved. “_Sao’phekk’tel ar bekral!_” I scream at him, then storm out of his bedroom and down the stairs.  
  
His mother catches me in the parlor pulling my coat on. “Eleya, what—”  
  
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Nas. I … I can’t be here anymore.” I throw the door open and run out into the snow. I struggle to keep the tears back but they flow anyway.  
  


* * *

  
“Where’s Tiho?” Father asks me two days later. “I thought he’d be here for this.”  
  
“He’s not coming.”  
  
He pauses in the middle of loading my second suitcase into his battered old Cardassian-built groundcar, a leftover from the Occupation. “He broke up with you?”  
  
“I broke up with _him_.” Okay, that’s a lie; I’m trying to salvage some pride here. He gives me a questioning look. “He made it very clear it was either the Militia or him. _Se’phekk_ him.”  
  
“Language, El.” He hefts the suitcase into the back of the car and closes the door, then sighs. “Look, I’ll have a talk with him—”  
  
“No, Father, just … don’t. If he decides he wants to talk to me again, he’ll call.”  
  
It’s an hour and a half on a two-lane ferrocrete road from Priyat to Kendra City, the closest shuttleport and the only big city in the entire province. The stark brown Cardassian architecture is a sharp contrast to the mostly wood and mud-brick of my hometown. We park at the shuttleport and lug my suitcases through the checkpoints. Father sweeps me into a bear hug. “My little girl, all grown up,” he says into my hair.  
  
“When are you coming home, Big Sis?”  
  
I break away from Father and stoop a bit to hug my thirteen-year-old sister. Even after she hit her growth spurt a month or so later she was never as tall as I was. “Not for a while, Teri.”  
  
“Mother and I made you a box of jumja sticks.” My mouth starts watering and I hug her again.  
  
The P.A. system chimes and a female voice with an Ashallan accent announces, “Attention, all passengers for Samren Provincial Shuttleport Flight 323. First-class passengers, please proceed to the gate.”  
  
“That’s my flight. I’ve gotta get in line.”  
  
Mother grabs me and kisses me on both cheeks. “You be safe.”  
  
“Mother, I’ll be fine.”  
  
“You’re still a seventeen-year-old girl. You be careful, understand me?”  
  
“Yes, _Mother_.”  
  
“And don’t take that tone. Now go on, before I start crying and embarrass us both.”  
  
The seat is in coach, all a government ticket will pay for, and it’s cramped as hell. I manage to get comfortable and nod off as we take off, but it’s a suborbital so it’s barely twenty minutes before the overweight Boslic in the seat next to me shakes me awake and says we’re there. I collect my bags and exit the airport, and a gray-uniformed Surface Arm sergeant meets me and points to a bus painted in grassland drab. It’s as utilitarian as my father’s truck, but the fuel cells are Federation manufacture so it runs cleaner and sounds a hell of a lot quieter. One of the male recruits in the seat in front of me starts flirting with me. He’s not my type so I ignore him and pass out again.  
  
Militia basic training is held at Camp Li, a base in the Kolharis Range named for one of the heroes of the Resistance, a man who died defending Deep Space 9 with the Emissary during Jaro Essa’s coup attempt in 2370. The surrounding mountains were plundered by the spoonheads for deposits of duranium and heavy metals, and they blew the top off Mount Bahatan with a battleship’s main disruptor to turn it into a landing field for orbital cargo lifters headed to Terok Nor. The effects on the terrain make it a good training ground.  
  
My waist-length hair is the first thing to go. It’s infuriating but there’s a reason for it—too easy for it to get caught in something. We also have to take our earrings off when we’re working. And we’re technically not allowed to bring outside food on base, but I bribe Staff Sergeant Tem with a quarter of the box of jumja sticks and she lets me keep the rest. They still don’t last two weeks.  
  
Five months of frequently hellish training follows. Physical training. Hand-to-hand combat. Guns, knives. Mental conditioning techniques we learned from the Cardassians. Technical skill assessments and lessons. _tlhIngan Hol_ and Cardassian language lessons.  
  
I keep hoping for Tiho to call. He never does. I check my messages every day for two months, but he never does. One day I stop checking, and lose my virginity with a guy in my training platoon in the cargo compartment of an IFV. Turns out sex is a lot of fun, who knew?  
  
Three months in, they make me a squad leader. I wonder if they’re grooming me for something. Turns out they’ve decided I have “leadership qualities” and put me in charge of a team for Hell Week. They fly us out to Serpent’s Ridge in Dahkur Province, eight days by foot away from the nearest civilization, give us compasses, guns, and four days’ food and water, and tell us to hoof it to Camp Shakaar. Oh, you get an emergency beacon, too, but you press it and you lose. No real penalty other than your pride, but it affects your placement in the service.  
  
I grit my teeth and bear it. Father somehow found time to make sure his girls could survive in the wilderness. I was twelve, she was eight. I’m one of about a dozen out of the original hundred to make it to day six but then I step in a hara cat burrow and break my ankle. Hurts like hell but the disappointment I feel hurts worse, even though Gunny Lemri says I did fine.  
  
Graduation. My initial training company of over a thousand has been whittled down to three hundred, and of my original squad I’m the only one left. I struggle not to fidget as the graduating recruits are listed off. My royal blue dress uniform itches and doesn’t fit right, too tight across the chest. I think my breasts grew a little since the start of boot camp.  
  
“Lance Corporal Kanril Eleya!” Gunny Elwar, a one-eyed gray-hair who joined the Militia the year I was born, barks my name. “Congratulations, you’re going blackside. Republic of Bajor Starship _Kira Nerys_, Tactical Department. You’re shooting the big guns, girl.”  
  
I really hate it when he calls me ‘girl’.  
  
“_Balus kren!_” he bellows across the field at the end.  
  
“_Balus kren!_” three hundred voices shout back. It’s been the Militia’s war cry for thirty years. In Dahkuri dialect it means “Never again!”  
  


* * *

  
That’s the real story, Mr. Sisko. Nothing drew me to space specifically. I joined the Militia to get out of the town I was born in, to get a job and a college education. I was _sent_ to space, because the Bajoran Militia in its infinite wisdom decided that’s where my skills lay. As for how Starfleet picked me up? Well, back then there were already movements in the Chamber of Ministers to shut down Space Arm. “We can’t afford it, it’s just a silly national pride thing, and they’re less effective than Starfleet anyway,” the Conservative Association said. “The Feds can’t be everywhere and they won’t fight for us as hard as we’ll fight for ourselves,” the Nationalists said. Politics as usual.  
  
In the end, like so many other things in life, it came down to money. Bajor was plundered so thoroughly during the Occupation that for several years afterward we could barely feed ourselves, never mind contributing anything to the outside world. Even nowadays most of the Republic’s income comes from being a trade hub—by the terms of the Bajoran Wormhole Treaty we get a cut of everything that goes through Deep Space 9 and the Celestial Temple—so we’re a lot more vulnerable to shifts in the galactic economy than other planets. With the economic recession in 2400 the money just wasn’t there anymore, and the Socialists joined with the Conservatives when the shutdown bill hit the Chamber floor. Space Arm would be decommissioned, effective Ilrani 7E947, or June 2401 the way you humans write the calendar.  
  


* * *

  
_Ilrani 11, Seventh Era 947, Year of Ill-Timed Truth_  
  
As the _Kira_ pulls into a parking orbit over Bajor at the end of her final voyage I’m paged to the command deck. I file through the old Breen _Chok Thol_-class frigate’s cramped corridors, squeezing past a pair of corpsmen and stopping to let Captain Azro from Engineering past me. “Sarge,” he says by way of greeting.  
  
“Captain.” I watch him leave and resist the urge to eye his backside. He’s a decent guy; I’ve liked him since I came aboard three and a half years ago. Pretty cute, too; if he wasn’t a zero I might have asked him out.  
  
I push past a pair of armed security guys taking the stardust smugglers we bagged on our last patrol to the shuttlebay in shackles, squeeze into the turbolift next to four familiar faces, and request the bridge. The lifters squeal a bit as the car rises five decks to the top of the ship, then the door slides open on the bridge. I’ve seen vids of Federation starship bridges. They’re _huge_. This is anything but: twelve people collapsed into a room not much more than five by four meters. And what passes for Colonel Karryn’s ready room must’ve been a broom closet in a former lifetime. Lieutenant Fadil, the tactical officer, points to the door and I knock. “Enter!”  
  
I step inside and come to attention and Karryn Retta remotely closes the door. The CO’s close to Mother’s age, with dark skin, graying black hair and an old scar on her jawline from the last years of the Occupation. I salute, both in deference to her rank and in gratitude for her Resistance work, but she doesn’t look up. “Sergeant Kanril Eleya, reporting as ordered, ma’am.”  
  
“Have a seat, Sergeant,” she says, still not looking up. About a minute in I start fighting the urge to fidget before she finally lays down a much-abused PADD and stylus and apologizes for the delay. “By some dubious work of the Prophets there seems to be more paperwork involved in shutting a unit down than in running it.”  
  
“Ma’am?”  
  
“Never mind.” She leans back in her chair and I can see the fatigue in her eyes. “I’ve been going down the list of my NCOs now that Bajor’s handing space over to Starfleet. Same question for you as the rest, Kanril. What are you planning to do next?”  
  
“Honestly, I’m not sure, ma’am.”  
  
“Says on your recruitment record you were interested in the Ahuar Zorn scholarship after serving your term.”  
  
“That was four years ago, ma’am.”  
  
She nods. “It’s still on the table, though: You can muster out, go to college. Door number two, you ship over, go back to Mount Bahatan and get recertified in another specialty. You’re a good shooter, could turn peacekeeper or infantry, or you could do another electronics route.”  
  
“Either way, I’ll probably never be in the black again,” I answer in a sad tone.  
  
Her lips twist and her eyes smile. “Ah, a-ha-ha. So _that’s_ what you really want, Sarge. We can work with that. Door number three? An inter-service transfer order.”  
  
I stare at her. “Starfleet?”  
  
“No, the Dominion. Of course, Starfleet.”  
  
“You think they’d take me?”  
  
“You’re qualified, and you’ll skip most of the training since we read from the same manual, more or less. You could practically just change uniforms and hop the morning transport to DS9. But there’s another possibility you should consider.”  
  
She picks up the PADD again, taps it a few times with her stylus, and then passes it to me. There’s a form on the screen, an application to a certain service academy’s Officer Candidate School program, with all my information pre-loaded. “Starfleet Academy, ma’am?” I ask for confirmation in surprise.  
  
“Your aptitude scores are good enough you can take the quals, and I’m certain you’ll pass them. Starting as an NCO you’ll be an ensign in eighteen months. Hell, eight years from now you could have your own ship! Better one than this piece of crap,” she adds, smacking a suddenly flickering light panel with a fist.  
  
Badmouthing your own ship? “Colonel—”  
  
“Well, let’s face it, this is an eighty-year-old secondhand Breen frigate. I love her but I’ve got no illusions about it. Prophets, she wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art even when she was brand-new, and all the jury-rigging we keep having to do doesn’t help overmuch as you well know. Starfleet’s just plain got better toys. But enough about me, let’s talk about you. Where do you see yourself this time next week?”  
  
I say nothing. I originally enlisted because I wanted to get out of Priyat and be able to say I had an adventure before I settled down. And the guaranteed full ride was a nice bonus. But being out here in space? About a year in I discovered I loved it. Sure, it’s boring a lot of the time, especially in my department, but it’s beautiful. I never get tired of looking at it.  
  
I want to stay in the black. I _really_ want to stay. Next thing I know I’ve taken the stylus, scribbled a signature on the dotted line, and pressed my thumb against the panel. I put the PADD down and the colonel smiles at me. “I thought so.”  
  


* * *

  
I return to Priyat older and a little wiser than when I left and visit with my parents for about three weeks while I’m waiting for the orientation session at Starfleet Academy. I find out Tiho left town for good two years after I did. Last I heard he’d joined the priesthood and was sent offworld to New Bajor.  
  
Mother fusses over me and tries to get me to have the veterans’ hospital remove the scars from where I was stabbed by that greenskin two years ago. I brush her off. They’re a vivid reminder that I’m not invincible, something I still forget every once in a while.  
  
That’s the reason I give her, anyway. It’s not the whole story. I may have popped my cherry in the back of an armored vehicle, but I didn’t lose my innocence then. That’s what the scars mark: The first time I killed, and the first time I nearly died. The first time I looked Death in the eye. The first time he blinked.  
  
Someday he won’t.  
  
Finally I say goodbye to my family for the second time. This time I won’t be anywhere near my homeworld for nearly four years. Starfleet pays my passage on a _Gallant_-class passenger liner headed to Sol, but I take some of my savings and splurge on an upgrade to business class. Definitely worth it: I get a private room instead of having to bunk with somebody. Transwarp still isn’t available to nonmilitary vessels so it’s a long trip. I have to make a connection at Trill and finally arrive in Earth orbit after almost a month of travel.  
  


**END OF PART ONE**


	3. From Bajor to the Black, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanril Eleya arrives at Starfleet Academy, learns, falls in love, and has her heart broken. After graduation, she faces the Borg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The details with Jerrod Dalton in this chapter are loosely based on the Foundry mission "The Interwarp Experiment" by AstroRobLA.

**From Bajor to the Black, Part II  
**

  
What did I think when I reached Earth? I was just glad the trip was over, frankly. What? I’m Bajoran. You humans may think it’s something special, but Earth to me is just another Class M rock like a thousand others. Only difference is I have to pay taxes to it, same as I would if the Federation was headquartered on Vulcan or Tellar.  
  


* * *

  
I materialize on a transporter pad at Starfleet Academy. My luggage doesn’t. Found out later it got beamed to Kabul by mistake. Typical.  
  
A human cadet waiting at the transporter pad looks me up and down. Blond, dark brown eyes. “Um, Cadet Kanril Eleya?”  
  
I guess he’s confused by my gray-and-green Militia technician uniform. I nod at him. He’s a nice looking guy, looks about my age. His collar has third-year pins on it and the divisional colors say science track. He’s still staring. “What, do I have something on my face?”  
  
He jerks a bit. “Um, no. Sorry, I was told to come get you and take you to Captain Ben-David’s office. I wasn’t expecting … What uniform is that?”  
  
“Bajoran Militia. I’m an inter-service transfer. I was an NCO, naval gunnery specialist.”  
  
“NCO?”  
  
“Uh, ‘non-commissioned officer’? I was a sergeant.”  
  
“Oh!” I see the light panel turn on in his mind. “You mean a noncom.”  
  
“‘Noncom’, got it.”  
  
“Well. Um, follow me, Sergeant Eleya.”  
  
He starts away and I shoulder my kitbag and follow him. “By the way, Eleya’s my given name, not my surname.”  
  
“Sorry. I’m Jerrod Dalton, Astrophysics major.”  
  
“Nice to meet you.”  
  
After meeting with Captain Peter Ben-David to get my classes and uniforms sorted out, and making a trip to the Academy hospital for a round of immunotherapy against Earth pollen and so forth, I get settled in and start familiarizing myself with the campus. They’ve got me in an old-style two-person dorm room roughly the same size as the Kira’s bridge. My roommate’s a second-year, a human woman with black hair, brown skin, and almond-shaped eyes. She’s Jasmine Velasquez, a warp core major who tells me to call her Jazz. Apparently her family’s been in uniform since the Revolutionary War, whatever that is.  
  
Starfleet has a much looser uniform code than the Militia so the first thing I do is start growing my hair back out. I still can’t grow it as long as I had it as a teenager but eventually I’ll have a ponytail again.  
  
Officer training’s mostly like I expected: a lot less physical, a lot more mental. I’m in classes six hours a day—everything from weapons engineering, my major, to conversational Rihan—and I hit the gym afterward to keep in shape. I start learning a new art. The humans call it krav maga and Starfleet made it part of the Command Conditioning regimen almost two centuries ago. It’s not very different from the Cardassian-influenced military boxing I learned in boot camp, so I catch on fast.  
  
About once a week, usually Friday night, I end up booted out of the dorm room. Jazz keeps bringing people back, boys and girls both, about half of them not cadets and rarely the same ones twice, and nonhumans more often than not. I’m not averse to the odd hookup myself—Hell, I vividly remember waking up with a hangover next to two passed-out Klingons with a cracked rib and several bruises in embarrassing places—but she puts me to shame. Normally I go to the library but three months in I hit up an off-campus club for a drink because this time Jazz brought back a girl _and_ a guy. I file into the melee and try not to think about it. The music’s loud enough that last part isn’t too hard.  
  
After a few dances with people I don’t know from Tor Jolan, I go up to the bar and order a Hathon hammer. I’m a little surprised the bartender even knows what one is, never mind having the ingredients. Somebody comes up beside me and flags down the bartender. “Scotch and soda for five!”  
  
It’s Dalton’s voice. I turn. Dalton’s face, too. “Hey there,” I say.  
  
He turns to me in surprise and smiles. “Well! If it isn’t Sergeant Kanril!”  
  
I laugh. “That’s _Cadet_ Kanril to you, _dospek_.”  
  
He grins. I never noticed it before but he’s got nice teeth. “You here with someone?”  
  
I shake my head. “Roommate kicked me out for the night.”  
  
“Boy or girl?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He looks confused for a moment, then his eyes widen. “You mean to say—” I nod to confirm and take a sip of my drink. He turns his head away and whistles through his teeth, then turns back to me as the barman, who I think is Napean but I never actually found out for certain, comes back with several glasses on a tray. “Listen, I’m here with some friends—”  
  
“Well, then I won’t keep you.”  
  
“I was _about_ to ask you to join us, Kanril.”  
  
“I wouldn’t want to impose…” I trail off as he gets an insistent look in his eye. “Oh, what the _phekk_. Lead on, MacDuff.” I scoop up my glass and start to tell the barman to open a tab before I remember that Earth doesn’t use money. Humans, what can I say? They’re weird.  
  
His friends are a Vulcan named T’Shae with boyishly short black hair and pale skin who’s flat as console surface, a striped Bolian named Roro Brosh, a blue-and-purple Saurian named Sherik Akas who claims to be distantly related to the President, and an aristocratic-looking blonde Romulan named Arahael t’Rannoch. “Everyone, this is Kanril Eleya.”  
  
Chorus of hellos. “Hi there,” I reply.  
  
“What’s that you’re drinking?” t’Rannoch asks.  
  
I raise the glass. “Hathon hammer, cocktail somebody on my homeworld came up with. Start with bloodwine, then add two shots of kava juice and one of kanar, then you shake the whole thing over ice.”  
  
“Kanar?” Dalton looks confused.  
  
“Cardassian liquor, something like forty proof on average.”  
  
We chat for a while about drinking and classes and holodramas, the usual kinds of things, and eventually leave the club and go to a burger joint down the street that’s been operating under the same family since the 1970s. I let Dalton order for me. The burger he picks has something called ‘avocado’ on it. The taste is hard to describe; Bajor doesn’t have anything even close as far as I know.  
  
The others say good night at about half past eleven. Dalton and I don’t. Somehow I end up back at his room. His roommate’s out for the weekend visiting family someplace called Johannesburg. I ask Dalton why he isn’t. “Call me Jerrod,” he tells me, cracking a bottle of wine. “And in answer to your question, I’m from Aldebaran.”

“And that means?”  
  
“It means I’m closer to home than you are, Kanril, but I still need a seat on a starliner.”  
  
“Call me Eleya. Cheers,” and we clink glasses and drink. The wine’s from the Napa Valley further north. Not all that different from Bajoran springwine, maybe a little more alcoholic.  
  
I don’t remember afterward who started what or when; I’m just glad I remembered to get my contraceptive implant renewed the day before. I’m sober enough to ask him between kisses if he’s with either of the women we had dinner with. He pulls back long enough to answer, “T’Shae and Arahael are with each other, Roro’s married, and Sherik isn’t interested in mammals.”  
  
“Oh. That’s good.” Then we’re pulling at each other’s clothing, then we’re nude on the floor—what happened to the couch? Hell if I know—and I’m screaming aloud as he takes me, kissing and nibbling at the ridges on my nose.  
  
I don’t know how many times we made love that first night—I wasn’t exactly in a condition to count—but the light of dawn finds us tangled in a mess of sheets in his bed. He’s still asleep. I stroke his hair for a moment, then walk to the window, my front wrapped in a sheet, and watch the sun start to rise over the dark azure waters of San Francisco Bay, glittering off the water.  
  
I hear him shift in the bed behind me. “Morning,” he says.  
  
“You’ve got a great view,” I tell him.  
  
“Yes, I do,” he murmurs. I turn and catch him eyeing my ass. I snicker and look back at the bay. I feel more than hear him come up behind me and he kisses my neck. I start to laugh but it turns into a sigh as he turns to nibbling my shoulder. The sheet falls away and I allow him to lead me back to the bed.  
  
That’s that. After that night Jerrod and I are inseparable. We study together, we spar together in the gym—I win most of the time; unlike him I’ve had practical experience—we meet up almost every night, with or without our friends, and we spend most of our weekends together in varying stages of undress. Three weeks in he tells me he loves me; I decide I agree soon after. End of the semester we apply for a coed room. Four months after that I start telling him about my people’s betrothal rituals, and I’m only half-joking.  
  
Then one morning, just over a year after we met in Club Berliner, I wake up and Jerrod’s nowhere to be found. No note, no audio message on the console. He left in the night, didn’t even make me breakfast. I go to Admiral Bartila and learn the son of a _kosst amojan_ was offered early graduation and shipped out with the USS _Planck_ for a two-year survey mission in the Gamma Quadrant. The only response I ever get from him is, “Sorry. Had to do this. Be well.”  
  
They say love and hatred are two sides of the same coin. I can vouch. I cry myself to sleep every night for over a week. Commander Thrass flat-out orders me to go see a counselor because my grades are suffering. After a couple sessions with a Perikian Bajoran shrink named Toris Lem I learn how to sleep alone again and I get myself back on track. I satisfy my needs with friends like Jazz and t’Rannoch and the odd hookup.  
  
I don’t have the inclination or time for anything else. They let me in as a junior because of my online college credits, and the classes get harder the closer I get to the end. On Thrass’s recommendation I add some command school classes my fourth and final semester. They’re the hardest of all, but the challenge is exciting. I never really thought about wearing the red and white of a combat CO until a week into that semester.  
  
Graduation for the Class of 2403. Starfleet flies my parents all the way to Earth for the occasion. It’s good having connections. My new dress whites are a lot more comfortable than my old Militia dress uniform was, but you know how it is: they make them to look impressive, not for comfort. I’m in the top three percent of my class. I lost too much ground after Dalton left to have a shot at valedictorian and I racked up too many demerits for leaving my quarters a mess anyway, but I’ve still got ribbons for academic and athletic performance, and my Silver Cross is unique in the class. I see my father standing in the third row, beaming, when Admiral Daisuke Hussein pins a Starfleet ensign’s single brass pip to my chest.  
  


* * *

  
Yes, I still hate him with a passion, even today. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him and the bastard left without a goodbye or a reason. Took me almost three years to be able to have a steady relationship again, and my next boyfriend still didn’t last four months before we split up. Jerrod Dalton hurt me worse than that Orion did, and I still wake up every once in a while from nightmares about her.  
  
Anyway, for the next three years or so I had a pretty typical career path. They put me on one of the big _Regent_-class cruisers, USS _Betazed_, as a section head in forward gunnery. After the first couple of days the rank-and-file crewmen decided they liked having a former noncom for a boss. We were posted to the border with the remnants of the Romulan Empire to keep an eye on things and provide humanitarian aid on request while Taris and Sela had their dustup. Rumors were already flying about the Tal’Shiar getting out of control, and we even heard there was a would-be splinter state calling itself the _Kreh’dhhokh Rihan_ forming from refugees, disaffected RSN crews, and remnants of the few Ship-Clans that survived the supernova, almost a hundred light-years rimward of where we were in Zeta Andromedae. We didn’t give much credence to that last one at the time, more fools us.  
  
The aid? Off the record? Well, _obviously_ the Federation had an ulterior motive. No, don’t get me wrong, we’re absolutely supposed to help people regardless of present or future allegiance, because we’re the good guys and it’s the right thing to do. Besides, Nova Roma wasn’t exactly doing itself any favors by blockading planets with curable epidemics, and a lot of the fringeworlds were having to deal with long-term refugee populations with resources the central government didn’t even have. We _could_ feed them, and we _did_, with or without the consent of the Senate. But if we could sneak a few outlying planets away from the Empire by doing it, why not?  
  
By the time my second tour on the _Betazed_ was up the Council had declared war on the Klingons over the crap J’mpok was trying to pull in the Hromi Cluster, and I notified Command that I wanted a front-line post. Didn’t work out. They came up short on officers who spoke Bajoran and Cardassian and they wanted somebody with Militia experience to liaise on Deep Space 9—apparently their last assistant liaison officer got into it with a vedek and was, uh, politely asked not to come back—so instead I got sent home to B’hava’el for six months. Boring, predictable assignment for the most part, mostly paperwork. I did get assigned to deal with a Dominion delegation once, though, which was interesting. Turns out Jem’Hadar hit pretty hard but, protip, their joints are just as vulnerable as yours or mine.  
  
No, of course not! The Vorta’s bodyguards just got antsy and needed to blow off some steam, so in the interest of diplomacy some of us agreed to spar with them in the gym. I needed the exercise anyway.  
  
I probably would’ve eventually gotten a command by the usual route but, you know that old Klingon saying. We aren’t born great, we have greatness thrust upon us. I don’t always like that I had it handed to me early rather than feeling like I really earned it, but enjoyment isn’t a job requirement. After six months on DS9 my prior request for a front-line combat post finally percolated through the bureaucracy, I guess. By now I’d been a junior lieutenant from time-in-grade for over a year, and they stuck me on this _Shi’Kahr_-class light cruiser, the _Kagoshima_, as second shift weapons officer. “_Baby K_”, we called the ship, in reference to the much bigger _Noble_-class USS _Khitomer_ in the same squadron. Captain Alfred Detweiler was a very nice man in my opinion. He kept encouraging me to keep taking command classes over subspace, no matter what he was doing he always had time to lend an ear, and he had a husband and three teenage children on New Leipzig whom he loved to bits.  
  
Explaining to them why I was suddenly commanding his ship was without a doubt the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.  
  


* * *

  
I materialize back on the transporter pad of the _Kagoshima_ as the ship shakes under another hit. The corridors echo with weapons fire. _Sher hahr kosst_, they’ve boarded us.  
  
My combadge crackles. “This is Security Officer Terel Khas! We need help now!”  
  
“Lieutenant Kanril here, I’m on my way!” I palm the access panel for a weapon and toss a rifle and Type 2 to the transporter chief.  
  
“Lieutenant, I am a transporter operator, not a soldier,” the dark-skinned Vulcan answers.  
  
“Petty Officer T’Shar, I rather doubt the boltheads are going to care one way or the other! Grab a gun and come with me if you want to live.”  
  
The _Kagoshima_ was part of a fleet massing for an assault on a number of KDF positions in nearby systems. Intelligence had just reported that we’d already lost the element of surprise—they caught a surgically altered Orion in Crypto at Starbase 138—when the Prophets decided it would be fun to throw the cosmic equivalent of a bad joke at us. Instead of the Klinks, transwarp apertures opened right on top of us and a superior number of Borg ships emerged and opened fire. First time anyone had seen them since the late Seventies. Wouldn’t be the last.  
  
I hit my combadge as I head into the corridor, following the sound of shooting. “Khas, it’s Eleya! Where’s Captain Detweiler?”  
  
“Dead!”  
  
“Commander zh’Thirial?”  
  
“Dead! Everybody who was on the bridge is dead! Sir, look out!” I hear a muffled thud over the comms and then a scream, distorted by loudness. The shooting ahead of us ceases abruptly.  
  
By now four or five other redshirts, a mix of security and tactical crew, faces I know, have joined me and T’Shar. I turn the corner for a moment then duck back behind cover. I saw well enough to tell that ten or so Borg drones are doing their unstoppable zombie horde thing. Looks like something out of a bad Earth holodrama. I hand-signal two of the others to sneak to the far corner and lean out again, rifle leveled. Now I spot Khas, a Bajoran noncom from Semmel Province, leaning against the wall, twitching and moaning, with gray spreading from a wound in his neck. I spit, shift my aim, and crack off a shot into his head to put him out of his misery.  
  
One drone, used to be a Talaxian, I think, sees me and moves forward. I fire a half-dozen times but the shots shatter on its force field. They’ve already adapted. _Phekk_, now it’s too close! It raises its arm but I swing the barrel of my rifle and parry the assimilation tubules into the bulkhead. The drone robotically utters, “Resistance is futile.”  
  
“Oh, shut the _phekk_ up!” Before it can try again with the other arm I slam the rifle straight forward into its mouth, feeling the static crackle as it passes through the force field, and just hold the trigger down. The drone’s head explodes backwards and bits of it bounce off the one behind it; the trunk drops like a stone. The other drones spin to face me. “Oh, _phekk_. T’Shar, give me your pistol! The rest of you, fall back!”  
  
“Sir!”  
  
I set the phaser to overload, holler “Fire in the hole!” and toss it underhand into the midst of the drones, then I turn and jump back through the doorway. “Computer, emergency seal blast door!” The phaser begins to emit a high-pitched whine and the doors slam shut as soon as I’m clear. Then there’s a muffled thunderclap and a staccato series of ringing noises as shrapnel skitters off the dense alloy. “Adapt to _that_, you son of a whore. Computer, scan for Borg life signs.”  
  
Chirp. “There are no Borg life signs remaining on the ship.”  
  
“Contact the bridge.”  
  
Chirp. “Error. The bridge suffered a direct hit from a Borg cutting laser four-point-two minutes ago. There are no survivors detected.”  
  
Over my swearing T’Shar says, “Computer, identify seniormost active officer.”  
  
Another chirp. “Lieutenant Junior Grade Kanril Eleya, Shift 2 Weapons Officer.”  
  
“Sonuvabitch,” Crewman Vibol says behind me.  
  
He’s right. Last I looked I was pretty damn far down in the line of succession. “Computer, hail the _Khitomer_ and patch it through to my combadge, and direct us to Main Engineering, safest route.”  
  
A deep voice responds through my combadge. “_Captain Yim here. Go, _Kagoshima_._”  
  
“Sir, this is, uh, Acting Captain Kanril.”  
  
Silence for a moment, then, “_What the fuck?_”  
  
“My thoughts exactly, sir.”  
  
“_All right, I’ve got you on scan. The bridge is completely gone—_”  
  
“Figured that out already, sir. I’m going to try to take command of the ship from Main Engineering.”  
  
“_Okay, near as I can tell, your engines and most of your weapons arrays are still intact but your primary shields are pretty torn up. I’m going to send over some help. The Borg are moving off for now, headed for the planet. If they come back we’ll cover you._”  
  
“Negative, sir, you’re worse off than we are. They come back before we’re underway, forget the recovery op. We’ll set the self-destruct, then you beam us off and get the _phekk_ out of here.”  
  
There’s a silence for a moment, then Yim answers, “_Understood. I’ve locked onto your combadge and we’re beaming a work crew directly to your location._” There’s a transporter whine near me and a buxom Andorian JG with boyishly short hair, wearing tactical red, materializes with six engineers of various grades. She introduces herself as “Tess Phohl, torpedo officer.”  
  
“Kanril Eleya, acting CO,” I respond. “Main Engineering’s this way. Computer, direct the rest of the work crew, fastest safe route to forward shields.”  
  
We get to a turbolift and head down two decks to the engine room. A mutton-chopped Andorian _chaan_ meets me. “Bynam! Where the _phekk_ is Lieutenant Hayes?”  
  
Ensign Ehrob flicks a thumb at a human lying on a stretcher, covered in burns and moaning as a corpsman fiddles with a hypospray. Looks like an EPS conduit explosion. “He’s still breathing but he’s no good to us like this. I’m acting CHENG for now.”  
  
“Seems to be a pattern. All right, I need to set up a temporary bridge here.”  
  
“Right away. Kuznetzova!”  
  
It’s the solid work of ten minutes to get shields back and full control of the ship shifted to consoles across the front of the section and in the break room on the second level. As we work I quickly quiz Phohl on her background. “Born in the Adris Islands near Andoria’s equator, majored in military history with a naval weaps minor, assigned to the _Khitomer_ after graduation.”  
  
“Why’d you join up?”  
  
“To piss off my _thavan_,” she answers with a grin.  
  
I drop the ODN coupler on my foot. “Ow. Your what?”  
  
“Her _thaan_ father,” Bynam translates.  
  
“His family’s been Imperial Guard for centuries. I decided to be contrary.”  
  
I slam an access panel closed and take a seat at a workstation rigged up on the break room table. “_Kagoshima_ to _Khitomer_! We’re online!”  
  
“_Yim here, and not a moment too soon, Kanril! Reading two Borg probes headed this way, ETA two minutes!_”  
  
I grit my teeth. I’ve never fought the Borg before today but I know that even the probes are supposedly a match for an _Intrepid_-class cruiser. “Bynam, set shields, phasers and torpedoes into random remodulation. New frequency every shot.”  
  
“By the book, then?”  
  
“It’s the book for a reason,” Phohl returns. “Sir, we’ve only got thirty torpedoes left.”  
  
“I’m not a ‘sir’, Phohl. I’m a former NCO, I work for a living. ‘Captain’ is fine, ‘ma’am’ if you want to be formal, Hell, call me by my first name, even. Range to target, sixty thousand kilometers. Who’s on conn?”  
  
“Uh, I am, ma’am,” brown-furred Caitian ensign in ops gold responds. I gesture questioningly at his jacket. “‘Operation Return’ is my favorite holodeck scenario.”  
  
I rest my face in my palm. “Fine, we don’t have time to be picky. Ahead full.”  
  
“_Yim to Kanril, we’ve got a malfunction in targeting!_”  
  
His ship must be worse off than I thought. “Slave your fire control to ours. You can handle the targeting, Phohl?”  
  
“With pleasure, ma’am,” she says, giving a toothy grin. Now I’m certain I’m misreading her face—she looks eager, _hungry _even.  
  
I think back to my Academy lessons and start last-minute planning. “All right, remember, people, it’s time on target that counts with the Borg. They’re tough but attrition hurts them as much as us. Ensign M’shass, put them on our starboard and keep us moving, fast. Try to use the lead probe as cover against the trailer. Phohl, scan for load-bearing points, pick a spot, and keep pounding it for as long as you can reach it. Let’s do this!”  
  
“Aye, ma’am!” they confirm in unison.  
  
We close with the Borg at high speed, the _Khitomer_ below and behind us. “Entering optimum firing range,” Phohl says.  
  
“Fire at will.”  
  
“I have a lock. Firing!” Spears of coherent radiation limned in all colors of the rainbow erupt from our forward arrays and slam into the lead probe’s shields. The _Khitomer_ adds her fire to ours seconds later. “M’shass, keep us on this arc! It’s working!”  
  
“Aye, sir!” We close, continuing to fire again and again. Suddenly I feel a jolt and we begin to slow. “They’ve got us in a tractor beam!”  
  
A stream of plasma slams into our shields. “Starboard shields at ninety percent!” Phohl barks.  
  
“Conn, hard to starboard!” I order. “Fly us right up the beam!”  
  
“_Whaaat?_”  
  
“Just do it! Bynam, prepare to adjust shield phase and frequency, one-eight-zero from the probe!”  
  
“Captain, you’re not gonna… Yes, ma’am! Ready!”  
  
The _Kagoshima_ shivers around us as the engines fight the tractor beam and the ship begins to turn into the oncoming ship. “Engines to maximum!” I shout at M’shass. “Phohl, divert power to forward shields!”  
  
Now instead of _fighting_ the beam, we’re working _with_ the pulling force, taking us towards the probe even faster than before. “We’re gonna hit them!” M’shass yells.  
  
“No, set the computer to switch to full reverse after we pass through their shields!”  
  
“‘Pass through’?!”  
  
“Trust me! Phohl, get a lock on the tractor beam emitter!” Three, two, one, “Bynam, now!”  
  
“Adjusting shields!”  
  
The two barriers, phased at 180 degrees from each other, collide, merge, and vanish. The computer arrests our forward momentum and Phohl hammers her key, sending a single lance of nadions slamming into the probe’s unprotected hull and blowing a crater the size of our saucer into the tritanium alloy. The tractor beam vanishes in an instant. “Phohl, activate transporter! One photon torpedo, armed for ten-second timer!”  
  
“Beaming torpedo!”  
  
“M’shass, full impulse! Get us out of here!”  
  
Explosive weapons, whether chemical, nuclear, or matter/antimatter, derive most of their damaging force from the shockwaves produced when they blow in atmosphere. In the vacuum of space they’re left mostly with thermal radiation, reducing their potency. They also tend to waste at least half the energy released, since it radiates away from the target. But when a weapon goes off _inside_ a ship, it’s going off in atmosphere, and with no wasted energy. There’s a blinding white flash behind us as the 64 megaton matter/antimatter warhead blows, ripping the probe apart from the inside in a fraction of a second.  
  
“_Lieutenant Kanril, are you _insane?!” Yim’s voice.  
  
“It worked, didn’t it?” I shoot back. On the plot the other probe, unable to slow in time, slams into the debris field left by its compatriot, ripping huge gaps into its shields and hull. “Phohl, Yim, hit them now!”  
  
“_Roger, fire in the hole!_” he shouts as the Andorian barks, “Firing!” A volley of quantum torpedoes from the _Khitomer_ and more photons from us crash into the listing probe’s bow and flank and the ensuing blasts tear it to fragments.  
  
“See? They’re not so tough!” somebody says behind me.  
  
“Don’t get overconfident, Martinez,” Bynam warns.  
  
“Actually, she’s got a point,” I comment. “The Borg trade on the fact that everyone’s scared to death of them. Apart from that the only advantage they have is numbers and the fact they can adapt to frequency-based weapons.”  
  
“So, you’re not scared either?” he asks in a questioning tone.  
  
I look over to him and tell him absolutely seriously, “Trust me, I’m terrified. But when I was in basic Gunny Elwar used to tell us, ‘Soldier goes into combat and he ain’t scared, he’s either dead or stupid.’ Fear the enemy all you want, just don’t let it stop you from doing your job. Phohl, Yim, I need a new target.”  
  
Captain Yim’s voice comes through, “Not just yet. Let’s see if we can’t find a few ships that are still in one piece. Strength in numbers, right?”  
  
“Sensors!” I bark. “Who’s on sensors?” A dark-skinned petty officer three raises a hand. “Any friendlies?”  
  
“I’ve got a warp core signature, just arrived. _Olympic_-class, transponder says it’s the _Seacole_.”  
  
“Hail them.”  
  
The _Seacole_ is a hospital ship that we were supposed to escort to the facility on Relva VII after retaking it from the Klingons, but that’s obviously not happening, and so we spend the next hour rescuing survivors from several disabled ships and ferrying the wounded to the doctors. Another party of probes interrupts us but they’ve already taken heavy damage and prove no match. We move on to the planet itself, gathering surviving colonists by transporter before the _Khitomer_ demolishes the entire site with a torpedo bombardment. By now additional reinforcements, a couple of damaged but warp-worthy _Excalibur_-class cruisers and a _Dervish_-class escort, have dribbled in and we begin burning hard for deep space.  
  
“Captain, I’ve got a transwarp aperture opening ahead of us. Oh, _Scheiße_!”  
  
I don’t speak that language but I get the gist, especially now that there’s a damn cube on the sensors. It’s blocking our way out. “Screw it, we’ll go _through_ them. We’ve got enough ships now. All ships, this is the _Kagoshima_. Slave your targeting to ours and hit them like you mean it!”  
  
“_Sorry, this is Commander Rainier of the USS _Ulfberht_. Who the hell are you?_”  
  
Yim’s voice answers, “_She’s Acting Lieutenant Commander Kanril Eleya, and I’m _Captain_ Jay Yim, acting FOIC. Slave your targeting to the _Kagoshima_, _Commander_._”  
  
There’s a pause, then a reluctant-sounding “_Aye sir!_”  
  
I try not to think about Captain Yim giving me a field promotion. “M’shass, full impulse.”  
  
As we close the speakers fill with an echoing voice, as if billions of voices were speaking as one. “_We are the Borg. Surrender your vessel. You will escort us to your homeworld—_”  
  
“I’m getting really sick of hearing that. Phohl, shut them up for me.”  
  
“Weapons locked! Firing!” Dozens of streams of glowing particles erupt from our forward phaser banks and the rest of the fleet adds their fire. The cube’s shields spark and glitter under the barrage but hold.  
  
M’shass banks hard to port as a tractor beam erupts from the towering side of the Borg ship, but it wasn’t aimed at us. The _Mosul_, fifteen kilometers behind us, is ensnared and her shields start to collapse. A cutting beam spits out of the side of the probe and slices into the starboard nacelle but the _Szczerbiec_ cuts across the beam and interrupts it with its own shields. We continue firing on that same spot as the _Khitomer_ comes in high and opens up with a full broadside. One shot penetrates on frequency and the emitters for the tractor beam vanish in a fireball; the _Mosul_ quickly breaks off.  
  
A beam of confined plasma slams into our forward shields as we come around for another pass. The entire ship jolts and I hear an explosion behind me and somebody screams. “Damage report!” I bark.  
  
“Forward shields at 45 percent!” an ops noncom responds. “Power loss to Phaser Two! Casualties in Exobiology!”  
  
Phohl shouts, “Damage control to Phaser Two!” as I ask Bynam about the explosion.  
  
“EPS conduit blew on the catwalk! I’ve got a man down!”  
  
“Status of the cube!”  
  
The ship thrums with power as Phohl opens up with the remaining forward phasers. “Nearing shield collapse on this facing!” There’s a pause. “Aspect change in target! They’re trying to roll ship!”  
  
“Kanril to all units! Tractor that thing!” Six pale blue beams of projected gravitons snap out from the fleet and grip the cube, as even the _Seacole_ has joined the fight now. The Borg vessel is too strong to stop the turn completely so instead we’re dragged along as it turns, which was more the point anyway. Either way, we’re keeping our fire focused on the same section of shields.  
  
_Baby K_ shakes again. “Port shields at 20 percent! Wait, Captain, it worked! Enemy shield failure!”  
  
“Arm torpedoes and fire everything we’ve got! Take ‘em out!”  
  
“With pleasure!” She slams her fist down on the firing key. The forward launcher goes into rapid fire and half a hundred torpedoes in red and blue from all over the fleet hammer into the side. Huge cracks as wide as a runabout rocket across the cube’s flanks faster than the eye can follow. “She’s gonna blow!”  
  
“Conn, get us outta here!” I order. As we flee, the cube writhes in its death throes, clouds of green plasma beginning to spew out of the cracks, but even a mortally wounded beast can still bite. Remaining tractor emplacements ensnare the _Mosul_ and the _Ulfberht_ and another cutting beam slams out and rakes across the upper hull of the former. A secondary explosion erupts, then another, and in seconds the fan-shaped patrol escort is shuddering under a rapid series of blasts.  
  
“_This is Commander Dalmek! We’re abandoning ship! GHAA—_” and the rest is static. Escape pods begin to boil off the _Mosul_’s flanks, ants fleeing a doomed anthill, as it continues to shake under the continued chain reaction of explosions, and the lights go out one by one as the vacuum of space consumes the flames. The cutting beam, now flickering, snaps out again and rips into the after section of the ship, and a much larger explosion from the remaining torpedoes lays the stern open like a profane flower.  
  
“Prophets… T’Shar, drop facing shields and lock onto life signs! Anyone we can bring aboard, get ‘em!”  
  
The petty at sensors yells, “Captain, I’m picking up an imminent core breach in the cube! We don’t have time!”  
  
“You’re relieved!” Phohl snarls at him.  
  
“Initiating transport,” T’Shar announces with typical Vulcan dispassion, like she’s telling us she’s going down to the store. I don’t get Vulcans, I never have.  
  
Abruptly the screens showing our rear view go staticky as the cube’s drives finally blow. The radiation pulse washes over our shields a fraction of a second later and the _Kagoshima_ judders as thousands of tons of vaporized and fragmented metal and composite bounce across our hull. The lights change from white to red, indicating we’re on emergency power.  
  
“Transport completed, Captain. Thirty-four members of the USS _Mosul_ crew are now aboard. Dispatching remaining medical teams to Cargo Bay One.”  
  
That ship carried a crew of two hundred.  
  


* * *

  
The _Ulfberht_ brought us under tow for the next couple of days while the battered remnants of the fleet traveled to the nearest Federation transwarp conduit. Day three we managed to get main power back and went the rest of the way ourselves. _Baby K_ spent two weeks in the yard, during which they put me through the “Kobayashi Maru” and made me the permanent captain. We gathered a new crew and went right back out there. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, you know?  
  
Vega proved one of the worst defeats in Federation history. Starfleet lost twenty ships and over five thousand people, and of the 2.8 million civilians on Vega IX we got maybe nine thousand out. And we never found out what the _phekk_ the Borg even wanted, besides the obvious, I mean. But in the long run it may have been a lucky break. I know it sounds horrible of me to say that, but the boltheads’ reappearance got the diplomats on both sides to start talking again. That gave us a reason to hope this stupid, pointless war might be over soon.  
  
Just the latest in a long string of times our two sides have fought stupid, pointless wars over idiotic disagreements with a complete and utter lack of any conclusive result. Hell with it all.  
  
Do I wish things had gone differently in my own career? No, not really. I mean, if I’d taken the usual, longer road to command, sure, I’d probably get a bit more respect, but frankly I don’t really care what people outside my chain of command think of me. I care what _my_ crew thinks, I care what my superiors think, and I care what the Prophets think. And I’m happy where I am. I’ve got good people working with me and I feel like I matter. I’ll probably never make admiral, but to be perfectly frank that’s not what people who join Starfleet ever really want. Sure, we’ve got to have admirals planning things out, but in my experience nobody dreams of being a flag officer when they sign on the dotted line and take the Oath of Service.  
  
They dream of being in that chair, on that bridge, making a difference in whatever small way they can.


	4. The Universe Doesn't Cheat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanril Eleya had to take command of the light cruiser USS _Kagoshima_ in the middle of a major battle, but some in Starfleet Command expressed reservations about field-promoting such a young, albeit promising, officer two full grades to lieutenant commander and retaining her as permanent CO. To satisfy the doubters, Fleet Admiral Quinn ordered her to Starfleet Academy to take the Kobayashi Maru.

Originally part of [Unofficial Literary Challenge #1: "The Kobayashi Maru"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1160383/unofficial-literary-challenge-the-kobayashi-maru).

**  
The Universe Doesn't Cheat**

_  
0952 hours Pacific Standard Time, Saturday, January 27, 2407, ten days after the Borg attack on Vega Colony…_  
  
The various military services of known space differ in as many ways as there are stars in the sky. The Ferengi organize the Alliance Defense Fleet around patrolling their commerce lanes, and their ships are optimized both to carry cargo and to fight pirates and mercs. The Klingon Great Houses are feudal lordships, fighting internecine battles with each other about as often as they combine under the banner of the Imperial Klingon Defense Forces to fight the wars of the Empire as a whole. The _riovir_ of the fallen Romulan Star Navy frequently acted as politicians and military governors. The Federation Starfleet styles itself an exploration and diplomatic service first and a navy second. And as always, nobody has any fragging clue what the Breen are doing.  
  
But if there’s one thing that they all have in common, it’s the importance of traditions. In Starfleet, the CO of a starship is always addressed as “captain”. The Federation flagship is always a member of the newest, most advanced class in service at time of commissioning, and is always named USS _Enterprise_ with the registry number NCC-1701. And before formally being granted the right to command a starship, a Starfleet officer has to take a command simulation called the “Kobayashi Maru.”  
  
And because of tradition, despite holodecks having been a thing since the late 23rd century, the “Maru” is still conducted on a physical simulated bridge, located in the Richard Barnett Building on the Starfleet Academy campus in San Francisco, California. Which is where Captain Haelivthras th’Shvrashli, “Thrass” to his friends, is headed. The Andorian, who is on his second two-year tour as an Academy instructor, had been assigned yesterday as one of the monitors for an off-season session of the test, and is going to the pre-test meeting in the faculty room on the third floor. “Morning, people,” he greets everyone as he walks into the room and makes for the coffeepot. “So, who’s today’s victim? Coffee, anyone?”  
  
Commander Steven Hackett strokes his beard as he brings it up on his PADD. “Kanril Eleya, and no, thank you, sir.”  
  
“Tell me about her,” Rear Admiral Brenth Arkad asks. “And get me a refill, Thrass.”  
  
“Bajoran, age 27, acting lieutenant commander, acting CO, USS _Kagoshima_. Enlisted in the Bajoran Militia out of high school, served four years, awarded Bajoran Silver Cross for Valor in ’99. Admitted to the Academy as a junior, 2401, majored in naval weapons, graduated ’02. Two tours on the Romulan border as a gunnery officer on the _Betazed_, then six months as a Militia liaison on DS9.”  
  
“Ah,” Thrass says. “I remember her from one of the classes I taught a few years ago. ‘Scarface’, we called her.”  
  
“I hope you didn’t call her that to her face.”  
  
“Oh, absolutely not, Steve,” Thrass agreed, chuckling as he pours a cup for Arkad. “One thing I’ve learned in my career, never piss off a Bajoran female. Long story; I won’t get into that. How’d she end up captain? She only graduated three-and-a-half years ago.”  
  
“She was at Vega. Everybody senior to her was assimilated or blown up,” Steve answers.  
  
The Atrean admiral grimaces. “Rough.” He stretches and takes the cup. “How is she as a person?”  
  
“You want my opinion or just what’s in her dossier, sir?”  
  
“Speak your mind, Thrass.”  
  
“She’s got potential. Now, she’s got a temper, she’s coarse—seriously, she swears a _lot_—and she’s a straight shooter without a lot of subtlety. On the other hand, she’s smart and she thinks on her feet, she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and she’s fiercely loyal to her friends. She was my favorite student.”  
  
“What do you think she’s going to do?” Steve asks.  
  
“I have no idea,” Thrass replies, grinning. “I will say, don’t expect much in the way of technical wizardry. Her approach is generally, if it doesn’t die the first time, hit it harder. Don’t underestimate her, though, she’ll surprise you.”  
  
“Think she’ll pull a Kirk?” Arkad queries.  
  
“No,” Steve answers confidently. “I mean, her acting chief engineer, Ensign Ehrob, liked to play with code according to this file—he got a demerit for hacking another cadet’s dorm console to play Catullan metal on an endless loop—but we’ve gone over all the computers with a fine-toothed comb like we have every run since Kirk. Plus, she wouldn’t know she needed to: it’s her first time taking the test. Per standard Form IV prep materials she knows she’ll be commanding a _Constitution_-class on a rescue mission across the Klingon border and that’s it.”  
  
“Wait, she didn’t take the ‘Maru’ in school? Says here she took a number of command classes.”  
  
“But not enough that it was a requirement, sir,” Captain Sivuk says, walking in. “Good morning, Steven, Captain th’Shvrashli, Admiral Arkad, Commander Haas.”  
  
“Hey, Sivuk,” Steve greets him. “Test chamber all squared away?”  
  
“Indeed. We are ready to proceed at 10:10, as scheduled.” The stocky, graying Vulcan from the School of Engineering is twenty years into his second career, having spent the first fifty-five years of his adult life as a city planner in Shi’Kahr. He steps over to the replicator and orders a raspberry yogurt. “In answer to your question, Admiral, in this case the ‘Kobayashi Maru’ is a chiefly a formality to satisfy those who believe her too inexperienced for her first command. Admiral Quinn has made it clear that despite her youth, he feels she demonstrated command ability abundantly during the fighting at Vega Colony. He will make her the _Kagoshima_’s permanent CO unless she fails entirely.”  
  
“So the actual test result doesn’t really matter?” Hackett asks.  
  
“No, it matters,” Commander Justine Haas replies, speaking for the first time. “She does well, she gets fast-tracked, makes captain in two years. And it shuts up the naysayers, causes her less trouble down the line. Besides, the test gives us some fun, too. I’ve seen her type before: tough girl, brash, a little arrogant. She’s a young Kirk with a crinkled nose. Let’s face it: fucking with her will be fun,” she finishes with an evil grin.  
  
“Kirk? You really think so, Justine?”  
  
Haas is about to answer the admiral when the intercom chirps. The computer’s voice says, “The time is ten hundred hours. The time is ten hundred hours and ten seconds.”  
  
“Time to go, people,” Arkad says. He knocks back the last of his coffee and leads the way out of the room.  
  


* * *

Thrass enters the monitoring room and whistles upon seeing another Andorian, much younger, in the tactical officer’s seat in the bridge simulator. “So who’s the _shen_ with the great rack?”  
  
“Captain!” Steve says in a half-scolding, half-surprised tone.  
  
“Hey, I’m bonded, not dead. Look, but don’t touch, eh?”  
  
Sivuk ignores the repartee. “That is Lieutenant Tesjha Phohl, full name Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, goes by Tess. She was a torpedo officer on the _Khitomer_ but Captain Yim sent her to help Kanril operate the _Kagoshima_ as acting tactical officer.”  
  
“All right, who else is in there?” Arkad queries.  
  
Steve checks his PADD again. “Lieutenant Birail Riyannis, a laboratory officer from Biology, assigned to play Kanril’s science officer, and Lieutenant T’Var, ops, who was here on layover between assignments. Kanril requested her; apparently they met in the gym and hit it off. Ah, speak of the devil, here’s the main attraction.”  
  
A tall, slim, athletic-looking Bajoran with flaming red hair, wearing a red-and-white Sierra-style CO’s jacket, strolls onto the bridge from the side door of the simulator. “I see why you called her Scarface,” Arkad comments. “What happened?”  
  
“Old knife wound,” Thrass answers. “Poison interfered with the dermal regenerator and it scarred, and I guess she decided to keep it as a reminder or something.” He reaches for the intercom. “Good morning, Commander Kanril.”  
  


* * *

I turn at the sound of a familiar voice. “Professor Thrass? Is that you?”  
  
“Yup, I pulled proctor for this round. You doing okay? Heard you had a rough time at Vega.”  
  
“No worse than anyone else, sir. Psych said I’m clean.”  
  
“Glad to hear it, Commander,” comes an unfamiliar soprano with an odd accent. She sounds mostly British but there’s a touch of another accent I can’t place. I’m not familiar with all of Earth’s languages. “I’m Commander Justine Haas from the War College. Also with us today are Captain Sivuk from Electrical Engineering, Commander Steven Hackett from Astrophysics, and Rear Admiral Brenth Arkad is our rep from the Academy Board. And you’ve met Thrass already, of course.”  
  
“Are you ready to begin, Commander?” Male voice, cool, carefully measured, got to be the Vulcan, Sivuk.  
  
“Give me two minutes, sir.” I hit the mute button on the console to confer with the team. “Remember the emergency plan?”  
  
“I still consider it too complicated,” T’Var answers.  
  
“It’ll work.”  
  
“Commander—” “_It’ll work_,” I interrupt more emphatically. “Tess? Riyannis?”  
  
“I told you to call me Biri,” the Trill corrects me. “And yes, I’m ready.”  
  
“I’m ready, too, ma’am,” Tess confirms.  
  
I slap my combadge. “Bynam, you ready?”  
  
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” He’s in the simulated engineering section one floor down.  
  
I unmute the simulator. “Ready to roll, sirs.”  
  
Thrass’s voice again. “Test begins in five, four, three, two, one, mark!”  
  
“Captain,” Tess says, “we’ve picked up a distress signal from the USS _Kobayashi Maru_. They’ve hit a mine near the border and their engines are out. Starbase 227 has ordered us to rescue them.”  
  
“Tess, sound battle stations. Conn, set course for their coordinates but bring us out of warp half a light-second from their location. And get me the full specs on the _Maru_.”  
  
“Course locked in.”  
  
“Warp seven, engage.”  
  
We’re thirty minutes away and I look over the data on the _Maru_. _Ptolemy_-class transport ship carrying a starliner pod. 257 passengers, 150 crew. If we have to leave the ship behind it’ll be a tight fit getting them all aboard the USS _Constitution_. “Tess, have anyone in the saucer cargo bays clear out, now. We’re going to need the space.”  
  
She nods and presses the intercom. “Any personnel in saucer cargo bays, please evacuate now.”  
  
“Once everyone’s out, I want everything transferred into the other cargo bays, prioritized as you please. Anything we can’t fit, toss.”

* * *

  
“Okay, so she’s doing contingency planning,” Hackett comments. “Can I say, I really, really prefer this long form for the test?”  
  
Haas agrees. “It’s better than the ‘jump straight to the _Maru_’ version. Takes more time, but we get a much better picture of the kind of CO we’re likely to get out of it. So far she’s being remarkably cautious. Going in fast but not top speed, saving her energy in case she has to make a quick escape, and I like her idea to pre-clear the cargo bays.”

* * *

  
The conn officer, a Bolian named Brota, announces, “Exiting warp in five, four, three, two, one, mark!” The warp field collapses and we drop to sublight. “Tess, charge up the weapons but don’t arm them yet. Sensors, do we have a fix on the _Maru_?”  
  
“Aye, sir,” the blonde human petty officer manning the station answers.  
  
“‘Ma’am’, Petty Officer Daniels. ‘Ma’am.’”  
  
“Sorry, sir. Ma’am.”  
  
I ignore the apology. “Conn, take us in. Quietly, now. Rig ship for silent running.” The intercom chirps. “Yes?”  
  
“Commander, this is Commander Hackett. Do you mind if we skip ahead?”  
  
I think for a second. “I don’t see why not. Bring us up to a thousand kilometers from the Maru.”  
  
The plot on Tess’s console fast-forwards. By the simulator’s clock we’ve been at battle stations for almost an hour, but it’s more like twenty minutes real-time (we skipped ahead during the warp trip, too). As we close on the _Maru_ Daniels announces, “Captain, I’m picking up a disturbance.”  
  
“Source?”  
  
“Not sure yet. Let me try to clean it up—oh, Hell. Reading four D7-class cruisers decloaking near the _Maru_!”  
  
“_Phekk_. Hail them.”  
  
“They’re jamming subspace!” the communications officer says. “Locking weapons!”  
  
“Use the lightspeed comms!”  
  
“Channel open!”  
  
I switch to _tlhIngan Hol_. I’m a little rusty but the words tumble from my mouth in a rush. “_SuvwI’pu’ tlhIngan batlh, eleya, torvo puqbe’ jIH. HoD _Constitution_ yuQjIjDIvI’ ’ejDo’. jatlh neH._” I switch the microphone to the intercom and order the forward sections of the saucer evacuated in case we have to make a quick escape.

* * *

  
Admiral Arkad’s eyes widen at the guttural, phlegmatic sounds of accurate, if somewhat badly accented, _tlhIngan Hol_ issuing from the Bajoran’s mouth. Thrass sees it and grins. “Part of Militia basic training, ever since the war in the early Seventies. Recruits have to demonstrate a minimum proficiency in Klingonese and Cardassian to qualify for offworld.”  
  
“Well, she’s not bad for an amateur,” Haas remarks.  
  
Steve comments, “I think we goofed on the enemy selection. Changing the subject a bit, what’s up with her ordering the forward sections cleared out?”

  


* * *

  


I’ve seen better-looking Klingons than this guy, G’Sten, he said his name was. I’ve seen worse-looking, too, but not many. “Federation _petaQ_, your friends trespass on Klingon territory! They will die, and you will die with them!”  
  
“My friends have no quarrel with the _tlhIngan wo’_ and neither do I.”  
  
“You speak the lies of a _taHqeq_!”  
  
“G’Sten _ghay’cha’ baQa’!_” I shoot back. Something I learned working on Deep Space 9 for six months: If a Klingon insults you, you insult him right back. But I’m mostly trying to draw his attention away from the PADD I just surreptitiously passed to Tess, and without a word she types a series of commands into her console.  
  
G’Sten seems slightly impressed. “You swear well, _bajorngan_. But it will not save you.”  
  
I don’t have time to think right now why a 23rd century Klingon can recognize my species, because Tess just announced, “Ready, captain!”  
  
“_Hab SoSlI’ Quch!_” I bellow at the screen, just to get the last word in for laughs, then cut the channel. “Tess, hit it! All hands, brace for impact!”  
  
“Firing!” And all Hell breaks loose as six things happen at once. Our rear shields vanish and a spread of photon torpedoes erupts from the forward launcher, streaking towards the Klingons. T’Var announces the nav deflector and SIF are at maximum power, and there’s a rumble through the hull as streams of blue-hot particles lance out from the broadside phaser mounts.  
  
At the _Maru_.  
  
The _Constitution_ leaps forward, rolling hard to port, the transporters activate the moment the _Maru_ clears the rear shield arc, and then there’s a godawful noise and jolt as our front end smashes straight through the narrow fuselage of the center-most battlecruiser just after a torpedo detonates on its shields. As we climb towards _c_ I hear a muffled voice behind me holler something that sounds like “Holy shit!”  
  
“Transport complete, Captain,” T’Var announces. “Our shot disrupted their shields as predicted.”  
  
“Tess, gas the cargo bay!”  
  
“Venting anesthizine gas!”  
  


* * *

  
“Holy _shit_! Did you see that?!” Hackett exclaims.  
  
“Yes, I saw it,” Sivuk says. “She let the computer handle the job for her.”  
  
“No, I mean what she did to that battlecruiser! The only other captain I’ve heard of pulling something like that off was Picard back in ‘66!”  
  


* * *

  
“Damage report!” I bark as we climb to warp 5.  
  
“Severe structural damage to … evacuated sections only,” T’Var reports. If I didn’t know better I’d think I heard some surprise in her voice.  
  
“Captain,” Brota says, “we’re heading straight into Klingon territory! Additional enemy ships detected, two minutes out!”  
  
“Hold course for fifteen more seconds!”  
  
“Three D7 battlecruisers in pursuit! Time to overhaul, thirty seconds!”  
  
“They came about faster than I expected,” Tess comments.  
  
“Yeah, they did,” I agree. Something feels wrong but I can’t put my finger on it yet. “Conn, crash translate to sublight and give me a Crazy Ivan! Point us straight to the border!”  
  
Our warp field shatters in a colossal thunderstorm of released energy and Brota fires the maneuvering thrusters. White-hot fire blazes from the tips of the nacelles and the ship flips end-for-end and yaws thirty degrees to starboard. “Maximum possible warp! Your turn, Bynam!”  
  
The intercom crackles, “_Warp 9.5! It’s the absolute highest this thing can handle but you’ll bake the core in ten minutes!_”  
  
“Conn, warp 9.5! Hit the gas!” The simulator screams around us as the warp drive overcomes the inertia pushing the ship almost the opposite direction. The stars blueshift and we rocket past the light barrier.  
  
“Pursuing vessels changing course!” Daniels shouts.  
  
“Can they intercept?”  
  
“No, but they’re coming about to pursue! Five minutes to the border!”  
  
“Tess, fire up the torpedo transfer tubes. Start firing torpedoes set for proximity detonation out the aft launcher, random angles, random intervals.”  
  
“We’ve only got 96 torpedoes left!”  
  
“Just do it! Give them as many reasons as possible not to follow us!”  
  
“All right, firing aft tube!”  
  
Sudden inspiration hits me. “Wait, keep four torpedoes back!” I hit my intercom. “Bynam, get a work crew to the forward torpedo magazine! I want you to refit four torpedoes with screamer warheads to act as decoys!”  
  
“_All right, I’m on it!_”  
  


* * *

  
“Impressive,” Sivuk comments. “Instead of one single strategy, she is combining several smaller tactics. Treating the Klingons as an obstacle instead of the objective, mining her trail with torpedoes, preparing electronic countermeasures to hide her ship—”  
  
“Yeah, and now the computer’s starting to cheat more openly to make up for it,” Arkad says, noting the readouts.  
  


* * *

  
“Two Klingon battlecruisers still in pursuit! Entering extreme torpedo range! Time to overhaul, three minutes!”  
  
“They’re not taking the hint, ma’am,” Tess comments. “And I’m running out of torpedoes.”  
  
Bynam’s voice comes through the intercom. “Decoys ready!”  
  
“Tess, fire for effect and deploy decoys!”  
  
A vicious grin lights up her face, and in a distinctly pleased voice she says, “Aye, Captain.” Four torpedoes scream out of our forward tube and take up random positions dozens of kilometers off.  
  
Then T’Var speaks up. “Captain, a word?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“I have been going over the data and the pursuing battlecruisers are closing too fast.”  
  
“I know! We won’t make it to the border at this rate unless we drive them off!”  
  
“No, ma’am, I mean they are closing _impossibly_ fast. The D7A _Akif_-class and D7C _K’t’kara_-class were physically incapable of achieving—”  
  
“—of going that fast, yes, I know.” _That’s_ what was bothering me earlier. I start to bark another order, then pause. My objective is to get the crew of the _Maru_ to safety. And if I’m right about what’s going on, that means it’s time to change things up again. I press the intercom key. “All nonessential personnel, evacuate to the saucer section! Space combat personnel, head for the secondary hull! Prepare for emergency saucer separation!”  
  
The holographic component of the simulator flickers and the walls compress a bit to simulate us shifting to the auxiliary bridge. We lose about three minutes on the clock.  
  
“All sections report ready,” T’Var confirms.  
  
“Enemy ships nearing our effective torpedo range, their extreme range! Missile separation!”  
  
“Blow the bolts, drop the saucer! Prophets go with you, Lieutenant Commander Baines!”  
  
It’s a little-known fact that _Constitution_-class starships were capable of saucer separation. The reason it’s little-known, however, is because they didn’t do it much: Unlike a _Galaxy_\- or _Odyssey_-class ship, the maneuver relied on explosive bolts and wasn’t reversible without a shipyard. A dull thud reverberates through the hull and the saucer breaks free and continues on the same course, the impulse engines adjusted to maintain the warp field for a short distance as it clears ours.  
  
“Captain, we cannot combat two D7-class starships without the saucer phasers,” T’Var informs me.  
  
“No, but we can hold them off,” I answer. “Conn, begin Sulu Flip!”  
  
For the second time in ten minutes Ensign Brota reverses our direction, this time without dropping out of warp. The saucer-less Connie hull tilts backwards, warp field churning and structure screaming. We pass vertical and—  
  
“Captain, look!”  
  
My eyes shoot to the plot as a third ship, this one a _VoDleH_-class battleship, decloaks in our path and catches us in the midsection with a barrage of heavy disruptor fire. Sparks and smoke fly all over the bridge as I frantically order Brota to drop to sublight, but it’s too late and the screen turns to static. Game over.  
  
I sit in the chair for a moment, glaring at the screen blinking a message that I’m dead. “_Sher hahr kosst. Phekk’ta yepal y’kren al’borea tash kelot!_” I get out of my chair, storm up the stairs at the back of the room, and throw open the door to the monitoring booth. “What the _phekk_ was that?!”  
  
“Commander! Stand down!” Captain Thrass orders, warningly.  
  
I hear T’Var and Tess come up behind me. “You cheated!” I growl accusingly at the room.  
  
“You have missed the point of the test, Captain,” Sivuk says.  
  
“Enlighten me, sir,” Tess requests.  
  
“The purpose,” Admiral Arkad replies, “is to judge your reaction to a hopeless situation. Can you, as a commanding officer, maintain control of yourself and your crew, in the face of the fear engendered by certain death?”  
  
“Sir, I’ve _already_ experienced the ‘fear of certain death’. _Twice!_” I point to the scar on my face. “You think I got this because my hairdresser fouled up? There’s a matching one on my stomach, Admiral! And I fought the damn _Borg_ two weeks ago!”  
  
“What about the fear engendered by inescapable mission failure?” Sivuk intercedes. “Please do not tell me that you do not believe in no-win scenarios. I have heard that before.”  
  
“Oh, I believe in no-win scenarios,” I shoot back. “I also believe they mostly take place because somebody _fucked up_! If you do your prep work properly, you don’t get into a no-win scenario!” I take a breath and finish, “It wasn’t a fair test, sir.”  
  
“The universe is not fair, Commander Kanril,” Sivuk answers.  
  
“Your logic is fallacious, sir,” T’Var counters.  
  
“Excuse me?” Hackett says in surprise.  
  
“False analogy fallacy,” I explain. “The universe doesn’t _cheat_.”  
  
T’Var continues, “Any simulated scenario relies on the participants’ willing suspension of disbelief in order to be an effective assessment. However, the D7 battlecruiser that pursued us across the border achieved a velocity that was physically impossible for a ship of that class. With the amount of power that Ensign Ehrob was able to get out of the engines the Klingons should not have been able to come about in time to overhaul before we reached safety, and yet it did. And the _VoDleH_-class was not capable of cloak. This was illogical, and the simplest explanation is that the simulation program cheated. Kanril and I discovered this, deduced that the simulation was unwinnable, and our willing suspension of disbelief was broken. Ergo, the accuracy of this simulation as a personality test is questionable. _Quod erat demonstrandum_.”  
  
“Wait a minute, back up a bit,” Hackett interrupts. “How do you know what a ship that went out of service over a century ago was capable of?”  
  
I answer, “Well, you told me I’d be flying a Connie and that the Maru would be lost in Klingon space. That told me the time period this thing was set in and who I’d probably be fighting, so I hit the library.”  
  
I see Captain Thrass grinning behind Arkad. “I warned you guys not to underestimate her. Relax, Kanril. As far as I’m concerned you passed the test.”  
  
“Let’s not be hasty,” Arkad corrects his colleague. “Commander, you’re dismissed for now. Report to my office in one hour.”  
  
“That’s it?”  
  
“Dismissed, Commander,” Sivuk confirms.  
  
“Aye, sir.” I snap to attention, turn on my heel, and leave.  
  
Outside, I pause for a moment. “Hey, T’Var? Thanks for backing me up in there.”  
  
“Your temper will one day get you into serious trouble, Commander. I was hoping to defuse the confrontation.”  
  
“Call me Captain. Or Eleya. Because if I can swing it, assuming I actually passed the test I want you as my operations officer.”  
  
“On the _Kagoshima_? I accept, Captain Kanril.”  
  
“I’m in, too, if you’ll have me,” Biri agrees. “I’m getting bored with lab work. I haven’t had that much fun since my third host got into that dancing contest on Ragesh III. I like your style, too. Never give up, even when the situation is unwinnable.”  
  
I look at the Trill’s friendly brown eyes and raise my eyebrows. “You _knew_? And you didn’t tell me?”  
  
“Of course I didn’t tell you!” she laughs. “Like T’Var said, it’s not an accurate test if the one being tested knows it’s unwinnable. I’ve been in the chamber, uh, six times, I think? Yeah, six, twice as me, four times as Devon.”  
  
“Well, what did you do?”  
  
“I didn’t. I’ve never had to take the test. I’m in sciences and Devon wasn’t even an officer.” T’Var looks at her. “Noncom, transporter guy,” Biri explains.  
  
“Well, let’s hope I made a good impression. I just got this command; I don’t want to lose it.”  
  


* * *

  
“She’s crazy,” Haas comments later in Arkad’s office, still somewhat in shock.  
  
“Agreed,” Sivuk says. “She reacts like a female sehlat whose cubs are threatened.”  
  
Haas shakes her head. “Unfortunately for us all, crazy’s something we need right now, what with the Borg reappearing and the Klingons stepping up their war effort. Her tactics were innovative and in my opinion spot-on. Especially the part where she turned her torpedoes into a minefield—I’ve never even heard of that one before. If the computer wasn’t designed to cheat she would’ve won outright. As it was she still got half the crew and passengers out, and saved her non-combat personnel as well. Also got a Klingon boarding party but she gassed ‘em before they could get their bearings.”  
  
“I’m more worried about her temper,” Arkad says.  
  
“She flew off the handle because she felt cheated,” Thrass counters. “How did you feel when you took the test?”  
  
“It’s not her having the emotion I’m concerned about, it’s what she did with it. One of these days she’s going to lose it in front of someone less forgiving.”  
  
“Eh, we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it,” Steve. “No denying that she’s a good tactician, though, right?”  
  
Arkad shakes his head. “No, and I think she handled herself well up to the point where the computer decided it needed to drop a damn battleship on her head to stop her. And I like that she tried diplomacy first, for what little good it did her. Thrass, do you want to do the honors?”  
  
The Andorian nods and presses the key for the intercom. “M’raak, send the commander in.”  
  


* * *

  
Admiral Arkad’s secretary, a black-furred Caitian petty officer in ops yellow, opens the door for me and I walk in and come to attention. “Acting Lieutenant Commander Kanril Eleya, reporting as ordered.”  
  
“At ease, Commander,” Arkad says. “Let’s get one thing straight, first. Your conduct after the test was incredibly disrespectful and it will not fly outside of this room. Am I clear on that?”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“Get a handle on that temper of yours or you won’t keep your command for very long.”  
  
I freeze in place and start to feel hopeful. “You mean—”  
  
The admiral presses a key on his console and a near-indestructible sheet of archival plastic materializes in the replicator. “I’m making your acting rank permanent and authorizing you as commanding officer, USS _Kagoshima_ NCC-91855. When your ship gets out of the yard next week you are ordered to report to Vice Admiral Sivana Dica at Starbase 179. You can take your frustration out on the Klingons.”  
  
“I still don’t have a full command staff, sir.”  
  
“One will be provided before you ship out,” Sivuk answers.  
  
“I have a couple of requests, actually, sir.” Admiral Arkad gestures for me to continue. “I’d like Lieutenant T’Var for my ops officer and Lieutenant Riyannis as head of sciences. And I want to keep Lieutenant Phohl on as my XO.”  
  
“She’s already your tactical officer,” Commander Haas points out.  
  
“She wants both jobs, sir.”  
  
The admiral lets out a breath. “I’ll have to clear it with Command, but I don’t have any personal objections if you think she can handle it.” I nod. “All right, then. Anything else?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
“Very well. Commander Kanril?”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Off the record. I’ve served in Starfleet for thirty years, and I’ve seen a lot of officers come and go. That includes ones with backgrounds similar to yours. They either rise above their flaws and become models for decades to come, or they burn out in a month, and I’ve seen both happen. Don’t try to solve all the galaxy’s problems all at once, all right?” I’m not sure what to make of that so I keep my mouth shut and wait for him to continue. “Take the rest of the weekend off, but starting Monday morning, for your penance”—this said shaking his finger at me—“you’re playing teacher’s aide in Captain th’Shvrashli’s ES 300 class until your ship is ready.”  
  
“Aye, sir.” The Andorian’s antennae twitch in a manner I’ve learned means they’re pleased.  
  
“Dismissed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was inspired by a remark someone else made in a STO forum thread about the Kobayashi Maru. The notion was that the poster's captain would hate a scenario designed to cheat: "she's fine taking her lumps from an impartial universe, but a scenario where 'the gods' play with rigged dice _annoys_ her."
> 
> Well, never annoy a Bajoran.
> 
> There's a couple of references to pre-novelverse Star Trek novels in here. In _Federation_ by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Picard rams a _D'Deridex_-class warbird under difficult-to-duplicate circumstances, angling the _Enterprise_'s saucer to slice through the neck. The "Sulu Flip" refers to Diane Duane's _My Enemy, My Ally_: during a dogfight at warp with two warbirds, Sulu reshapes the warp field to flip the _Enterprise_ end-for-end so he can hit a warbird tailing him with the more powerful forward phasers.


	5. Shakedown Shenanigans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years after taking her first command, Kanril Eleya is promoted to captain and offered the command of her choice. She chooses USS _Bajor_, one of the last _Galaxy_-class starships that will ever be built.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so we're advancing the timeline to 2409 now. "Shakedown Shenanigans" was part of [Unofficial Literary Challenge #4: "The Return of the Revenge of the Unofficial LC of DOOM!"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1169516/unofficial-lc-4-the-return-of-the-revenge-of-the-unofficial-lc-of-dooooommmmmm) (with way more 'o's and exclamation points), and it's where Eleya formally takes command of USS _Bajor_ after the loss in battle of her previous command USS _George Hammond_. We're now introducing the rest of Eleya's command crew, so here's the full cast of record at this time.
> 
> As alluded to here, T'Var is promoted within a couple of months and in December will leave to take command of her own ship, USS _Olokun_. That is when Reshek Gaarra, Eleya's love interest for the rest of the series, comes aboard.
> 
> This is also the first story chronologically where Eleya's recurring nightmares come up, the reason she has those scars on her cheek and belly.
> 
>   * Crew of USS Bajor:
>     * Captain Kanril Eleya, Commanding Officer: Jennifer Hale
>     * Commander Tesjha Phohl, First Officer and Tactical Officer: Claudia Black
>     * Commander Birail Riyannis, Science Officer: Ursula Abbott
>     * Lieutenant T'Var, Operations Officer: Lisa LoCicero
>     * Lieutenant Commander Bynam Ehrob, Chief Engineer: S. Scott Bullock
>     * Lieutenant Dul'krah, Clan Korekh, Security Officer: Idris Elba
>     * Lieutenant Junior Grade Doctor Warragul Wirrpanda, Chief Medical Officer: Wayne Blair
>   * Supporting cast:
> Rear Admiral Taurik, commandant of 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yard: Alexander Enberg 
>     * Fleet Admiral Jorel Quinn, Chief of Starfleet Operations: Tom Haney

**Shakedown Shenanigans**

_“To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.”  
_— Isaac Asimov, _Foundation_, from the USS _Bajor_’s dedication plaque

  
It’s dark and smoky in the Jefferies tube and my eyes burn from the smoke of plastic and insulation. Just gotta keep climbing, down, down, down, and there’s the hatch. I kick it loose and swing through into an equally smoky corridor; PFC. Davos quickly follows behind me.  
  
The conference room across the corridor is on fire, but that’s beside the point for now. Davos and I advance room to room, doorway to doorway. I spot a bald green head poke out into the hall two doors up. Without conscious thought the phaser rifle in my hands hums with power and a golden lance leaps from the emitter and sprays the wall behind with half the Orion’s face.  
  
Davos moves ahead, I level my rifle to cover him as he goes for the door of sickbay, and then he grunts and falls backwards, the ornate brass hilt of a knife sticking from under his left collarbone. A barely dressed female greenskin emerges from the doorway and my shot splashes off a personal shield. She whirls and throws something at me; I jerk sideways into the wall. There’s a muffled thrum from somewhere above me as the _Kira_’s spinal phaser finally fires, and the greenskin charges me, having pulled two more knives from I’m-not-sure-I-want-to-know-where.  
  
Too close to fire. I swing my rifle as a quarterstaff at her chin; she parries with a forearm and slashes at my face with a knife, then backsteps. I grit my teeth at the sudden pain on my cheek and try to bring the rifle to bear but she slashes across my front and swings a roundhouse kick and the phaser, sling cut, goes flying from my hands.  
  
Okay, basic training, combat drill from Gunny Elwar. I drop into Sau’vikta Three as she moves in. I jab at her midsection and she slaps the arm wide and I kick right at her kneecap. She traps the leg and punches with a knife-wielding left hand. I catch that wrist and the ghost of something—fear? Surprise?—flashes across her face. I knee her in the stomach and grab at the metal bikini and headbutt her face and _PAIN, SCREAMING BURNING AGONY OH PROPHETS HELP ME_  
  
I crumple to my knees, her other knife buried to the hilt in the right side of my abdomen with fiery agony spreading like wildfire. Above me the matron shakes her head as if to clear it and glares at me and—  
  
“Damn it, Captain, shut up!”  
  
That’s when I really wake up. No fire, no smoke, no pain, no greenskin, just a decently appointed business-class room on a starliner.  
  
Then the sour taste of bile fills my mouth and I barely make it to the toilet in time.  
  
As I sit there in a heap, leaning over yesterday’s dinner, I feel someone come up behind me. “That old nightmare again, Eleya?” Tess asks in a concerned tone, rubbing my back.  
  
I slowly stand and walk over to our room’s sink and pick up my toothbrush. “It’s worse when I’m stressed.” I hurriedly scrub the hell out of my teeth.  
  
“Not like we’re going into combat today, El,” she comments, heading over to our suitcases. “Time to get up, anyway. I’ll, uh, find you some underwear.” A sports bra and panties land next to me a moment later.  
  
“Bynam and Biri are meeting us there, right?” I triple-check as I step into the panties and pull them up.  
  
“Yes, and so’s T’Var, and so are most of the people who got off the _Hammond_. Just like the last five times you asked.”  
  
“You were counting?” I yank the bra down and adjust it. My heartrate’s finally starting to go down. “You want to order room service or go down to the galley?”  
  
She opens her mouth to answer but the P.A. chirps instead. “_Attention all passengers, this is Captain Savak with an update on arrival. The time is stardate 86644.03, 0745 hours, 7 August 2409 Earth Standard, 1737 hours, 9 Ailat 147375 Vulcan Standard. We are one hour and fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and will be arriving in orbit of Vulcan in seventy-five minutes. Your designated pickups, if any, have been notified. The galley and stores will remain open during debarkation but please be aware of your scheduled exit time and connections, if any, and have your identification and customs papers ready. Thank you for flying Starbound._”  
  
I pull on an undershirt and trousers and zip up my red-and-white CO’s uniform jacket. I glance over at Tess, who’s putting the finishing touches on her makeup, and as usual notice that she’s left her red-and-black jacket unzipped far enough to display a noticeable amount of cleavage. Showoff. I shake my head and send a preorder to the galley for our breakfasts.  
  
We disembark over two hours later and head for customs, an envelope with a sheet of archival plastic snugly under my arm. A uniformed Vulcan Defense Force officer sits behind the counter and orders us, “Place your hands on the palm scanners and state your name and occupation for the record.”  
  
“Kanril Eleya, Captain, Federation Starfleet.”  
  
“Tesjha Phohl, Commander, Federation Starfleet.”  
  
He leans forward and taps something on his console. “There is a discrepancy. Your biometric identification lists you as ‘Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi’. Please explain.”  
  
“‘Siritesjha’ is my Imperial name. ‘Tesjha’ is my birth name.” The customs officer stares at her, carefully expressionless. She lets out a frustrated breath and explains, “You’ve heard of Thy’lek Shran? Pre-Federation history? In Imperial Andorii his name is Hravishran th’Zoarhi.”  
  
“Which is your legal name?”  
  
“They’re _both_ legal names. You’ve seriously never dealt with an Andorian before?”  
  
“Shall I get Security?”  
  
“Yeah, and I’ll tell them the same—”  
  
“Look, Officer,” I interrupt, “Andorians use multiple names depending on which of their cultures they’re dealing with. Tess uses one name with her family and friends in the Adris Islands, or with me, and a different one with the Imperial government. Just use ‘Siritesjha’ since you’ve already got it on the paperwork. Sound logical?”  
  
“Very well. Purpose of your visit?”  
  
“Business,” I answer. “I’m meeting my ship. Tess is my first officer.”  
  
“Do you have anything to declare?”  
  
“Yes, uh, one case of Indali Vineyards 2406 _kaptera_, three cases of Klatha Reserve 2405.” He gives me the same neutral look he gave Tess. “It’s springwine. Bajoran alcoholic beverage? Made from kava juice? Whatever, I’ve got the import paperwork here.” I pass a data solid through the window to him.  
  
“Import fee?”  
  
“Starfleet’s footing the bill; it’s all there.”  
  
“You are aware that many Vulcan cities prohibit the consumption of alcohol?”  
  
“Don’t worry, my feet aren’t even touching the ground this trip. I’m going straight to the Starfleet yard, and we’re shipping out to Archanis sector end of next week.”  
  
“Very well. I hope your visit to Vulcan is productive.” His expression doesn’t change but I can hear the tinge of boredom in his voice. “You may go.”  
  
As we go out the door Tess mutters, “Damn pointy-ear’s probably jealous we’re headed for the front lines.”  
  
“Vulcans don’t get jealous, Tess.”  
  
“Pfft. Oh, yes, they do. Don’t ask me how I know, though.”  
  
Outside customs I hear a squeal and fifty-nine kilos of copper-skinned Trill collide with me. “Oof. Hey, Biri.”  
  
“Great to see you, El!”  
  
“It has only been a month,” a carefully controlled voice remarks. I look up and T’Var meets my eyes; I catch a glint of amusement in those coffee-colored orbs. “Nevertheless, it is good to see you, Captain.”  
  
“Likewise, T’Var. So, uh, what’s the plan?”  
  
“The shipyard commandant, Rear Admiral Taurik, will be meeting us at the yard,” my mutton-chopped Andorian chief engineer, Bynam Ehrob, answers. “He sent a shuttle to pick us up. We’ve got about 250 of 1,050 crew out here already and—”  
  
“Captain Kan-rile?” a voice asks.  
  
I turn to a Bolian warrant officer with pilots’ wings sewn onto the shoulder of her uniform jacket. “It’s pronounced ‘Kan-_rill_’,” I correct her.  
  
“Sorry, sir.”  
  
“‘Ma’am’,” Biri corrects him before I can open my mouth.  
  
“Sorry, ma’am.”  
  
“No, I’m a ‘sir’, she’s a ‘ma’am’.”  
  
The Bolian stands there looking stupid for a minute. “Moving on. I’m Warrant Officer Arerdwa Thele. The admiral sent me to collect you and your command staff.”  
  
“Well, we’re still waiting on the CMO and security chief.”  
  
Thele consults a datapad. “According to this Lieutenants Wirrpanda and Korekh are scheduled to arrive on the next transport from Starbase 621 in eight hours. Your suitcases have been transferred to my shuttle. If you’ll follow me, please.”  
  
He leads us down two decks and through several corridors to a shuttlebay where a big Type-7 passenger shuttle with the name _Al-Birjandi_ emblazoned on the hull sits waiting. We board and buckle in.  
  
T’Var sits beside me. “I thought you should know, Captain, that I am scheduled for the promotion exam in one month. If I pass I may not be with you for very much longer.”  
  
“You finished those command school classes?” I ask her, pleased.  
  
“Yes, ma’am. In fact Captain Justine Haas said she enjoyed my solution to the command test.”  
  
“Congratulations. Well, if they give you a ship I’ll be sorry to see you go, but I think you’ll make a good CO.”  
  
“Thank you, ma’am.”  
  
A short warp 3 hop and the second-busiest shipyard in the Federation appears on the viewscreen. If I remember my history correctly, the 40 Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yard was built on the site of an old Vulcan shipyard that was destroyed by a Romulan deep-strike during the Earth-Romulan War. It’s smaller but a lot more organized-looking than Utopia Planitia or the Okana Shipyard back home. A single central core, tapered at either end, stands five kilometers tall, with six decks of petals fanning out eight klicks in any direction. It’ll handle any ship in the Starfleet catalog and most that aren’t.  
  
Our pilot swings us past a battered relic of an _Excelsior_-class on the second deck from the top, swarmed by Sphinx workpods and hard-suited workers cutting blasted hull plates free. Ship’s been shot to hell by somebody. Greenskins or Gorn would be my guess—the damage doesn’t look explosive enough for Klingons.  
  
“Ma’am,” Thele says through the intercom, “you might want to come up front for this.” I unbuckle and work my way to the cockpit as we close with the central core. Then Thele banks right and pitches the shuttle forward and I grab at the overhead handle. Feels like he’s got the inertial dampeners set low up here. Smart, lets you feel the ship.  
  
Then my jaw drops. The huge elliptical saucer of a starship, half a kilometer wide, resplendent in a fresh coat of pale grey, lies below and in front of us, lit from within by its windows and from without by floodlights. In huge block letters across the saucer, two words: U.S.S. _Bajor_. Below that, the registry, NCC-97238.  
  
A _Galaxy_-class starship.  
  
_My_ ship.  
  
I’m in love.  
  


* * *

  
A light-skinned Vulcan male with two admiral’s pips on his chest meets us in the secondary shuttlebay. “Kanril Eleya? I am Rear Admiral Taurik.”  
  
I snap to attention. “Sir. Yes sir.” I take the envelope from under my arm and hand it to him with a formal flourish, intoning, “Pursuant to Starfleet Bureau of Personnel, Staffing Order Number 2409-Charlie-44332174-Alpha, I, Kanril Eleya, hereby assume command of United Federation of Planets Starship _Bajor_, Naval Construction Contract 97238.”  
  
“Thank you. Pursuant to orders I hereby relinquish command of this vessel to you. At ease, _Captain_ Kanril Eleya.”  
  
Glad we got that out of the way. I hate formalities. “Sir, some of my command crew. Commander Tess Phohl, my XO and tactical officer, Lieutenant Commander Birail Riyannis, my science officer, my ops officer Lieutenant T’Var, and my chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Bynam Ehrob.”  
  
“Sir,” the others say in acknowledgement. He nods. “I will have somebody deliver your luggage to your quarters. This way, please.”  
  
Biri and Bynam peel off early to visit their sections but Tess and T’Var quietly follow on our heels. “You are familiar with the differences between the _Bajor_ and earlier vessels of type?” Taurik asks during a turbolift ride.  
  
“Increased endurance, firepower and speed, quantum-reinforced superstructure, a meter of ablative armor and the toughest shields this side of a starbase,” Tess rattles off from memory. “She’s half-explorer, half-battleship, sir, to replenish losses against the Klingons.”  
  
“Yes, until the _Odyssey_-class enters full production next year. After the _Bajor_ and her sisters there will be no more _Galaxy_-class starships.” The turbolift slides open and we emerge on the bridge. Shipyard workers in a riotous mix of coveralls and service uniforms wander back and forth, working on the computers and putting the finishing touches on the trim. The whole place stinks slightly of industrial chemicals. I look at Taurik and catch a wistful look in his eyes. I’ve learned to look at the eyes with T’Var. “It is the end of an era, Captain Kanril.”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“On my first tour out of Starfleet Academy I was assigned to the _Enterprise_-D. I was present at the beginning, and I am now here at the end. Twenty-eight ships and then no more.” He points at a speck of light on the viewscreen. “We call it the _Planet_-class. Because each ship is named after a Federation homeworld, you see. Vulcan, Trill, Cait, Andoria, Earth, Coridan—”  
  
“Bajor.”  
  
“As you say, Captain. And each will receive from ten to fifteen percent of its initial complement from its namesake world, practicality permitting.”  
  
“How many Bajorans are we getting, sir?” Tess asks.  
  
“One hundred fifty-seven. Not including yourself, Captain.” I whistle. It’ll be the most Bajorans I’ve served with since I left the Militia. “Your ready room is this way.”  
  
My combadge chirps as we enter. “Kanril.”  
  
“_Captain, Engineering,_” Bynam’s voice returns. “_What the frak’s up with this reactor? Doesn’t match the specs I was given. Not reading any dilithium either._”  
  
I look to the admiral. “It is a Vector Industries X-227, Commander.”  
  
There’s a pause. “_A testbed design? You’ve gotta be kidding me._”  
  
“The design passed all trials and simulations, Commander; it is safe. It uses gravity fields to confine the reaction instead of dilithium. The core ejection systems have also been redesigned. You seem to have been given incorrect specifications.”  
  
“_Looks like._”  
  
“Admiral,” I ask uncomfortably, “is that thing on all the Series 23 ships or just the _Bajor_?”  
  
“Neither.” I give him a look and wait for him to finish the sentence. “The _Trill_, _Coridan_, _Benzar_, and _Zakdorn_ also have one, the rest use a standard core. Commander Ehrob, I will see to it you are provided the correct documentation.”  
  
“_No need, it’s in the computer. CHENG out._”  
  
“Any other surprises for me, Admiral?”  
  
“You are aware the ship carries quantum torpedoes instead of photons?” I nod. That’s been common on the _Galaxy_-class since the late eighties. “Then, no.”  
  
I sit down at my desk. Nice, comfortable chair. I look around. The ready room’s bigger than I had on the _George Hammond_.  
  
“Have you ever served aboard a _Galaxy_-class, Captain?” Taurik asks.  
  
I shake my head. “Last heavy capital I was on was a _Regent_-class, USS _Betazed_.”  
  
“I remember her. She came from this yard as well. We have some paperwork to look over.”  
  
Paperwork. Of course. I grab a PADD and start on the forms.  
  
An hour later we’re still working. “I see ten quantum torpedoes on this inventory. We’re supposed to have 180 in the magazine. Thoughts?”  
  
“There was a delay at the factory. They will not be delivered until—”  
  
“Until when? Tuesday? Wrong answer. You are going to find me a full load of torpedoes by the launch ceremony or I am not leaving dock. End of discussion.”  
  
“You are out of line, Captain,” Taurik chides me.  
  
“Am I? Would _you_ like to explain another _Enterprise_-B fiasco to Starfleet Command? Over 350 people _died_ because the San Fran yard dragged its feet on the final touches.”  
  
“That was a series of freak coincidences. The odds of all the required conditions—”  
  
“Let me explain the Prophets’ sense of humor to you, sir,” I tell him in a sardonic tone. “The higher anyone says the odds are _against_ something happening, the greater the likelihood it is _going_ to happen.”  
  
He stares at me. After a moment: “That is most illogical, Captain.”  
  
“Illogical, but true,” T’Var says from his right without looking up from her PADD. Tess hastily turns a bark of laughter into a hacking cough.  
  
Taurik purses his lips. “I will see what I can do to expedite delivery.”  
  
“Thank you, sir. Now, about the launch ceremony…”  
  


* * *

  
Crew keep arriving throughout the day, and the paperwork piles up faster than I can get rid of it. Next day is much the same but I get a bit of a break at midday to meet the last two members of my senior staff. Due to the outcome of the board over the _Hammond_’s destruction, I got a fair amount of leeway with recruitment, but I can’t handpick everybody on a thousand-man crew and Lieutenant al-Qahtani and Doctor Tretca declined to come with me. I’ll miss them but Tretca got a teaching job at the Academy, offer she couldn’t refuse and so forth, and Ruqayya is headed for Deep Space K-7 to be chief of security, so we’ll probably see each other again soon enough.  
  
I’m waiting in the shuttlebay as the _Bopp_ returns from Vulcan with my new CMO and security chief. The Type-8’s door slides open and a shortish black man with a slightly pudgy face, a bushy mustache, and deep-set, beady eyes steps down the ramp. He stops in front of me and comes to attention. One black pip, one gold pip, a lieutenant junior grade. “G’day, Cap’n. Doctor Warragul William Wirrpanda, M.D.”  
  
“At ease. I’m Kanril Eleya. If you don’t mind my asking, that an Australian accent?”  
  
“Well, I’m from Sagara IV, ma’am. Fleaspeck colony in Delta Volanis. But we’re about fifty-fifty Australian and Japanese. Mum’s from Murray Bridge and Dad’s from Perth.”  
  
I hear a heavy tread on the ramp, look up, and—whoa. I have no idea what species this guy is, but he’s huge, twice my width and easily a head taller, built like a Cardassian main battle tank I rode in once at boot camp. Scaly bronze skin, slit pupils, back-swept horns, talons, he seems tailor-made to be intimidating. And that is emphatically _not_ a standard Starfleet uniform. He approaches, sets down the instrument case he’s carrying, and sort of half-bows to me, pressing a forearm to his chest. “Greetings, Eleya, Clan Kanril. I am Dul’krah, Clan Korekh.”  
  
“Um. Well, that answers who you are. _What_ are you?”  
  
He seems slightly confused. “I am Clan Korekh. Blood-Clan Rustra?” He says it as if it should be self-explanatory.  
  
“He’s a Pe’khdar, Cap’n,” the doctor explains. “They don’t really have a word for themselves as a race; they’re only loyal to their clans.”  
  
“Then where do we get ‘Pe’khdar’ from?”  
  
“That is what the Ferengi call us. In our tongue it means ‘the last Clans’. It suffices.”  
  
I guess that’s simple enough, but clearly I’ve got some research to do. “Should I call you Dul’krah?”  
  
“If you do, I will answer. I will also answer to ‘Lieutenant Korekh’, as it is the closest thing I have to what you would consider a surname.”  
  
“And I’d prefer to be called ‘Warragul’ if you’re one of those captains who likes to be on a first-name basis with your crew.”  
  
“I generally do, with my command staff. Uh, this way. Tell me a little more about yourselves.”  
  
Warragul starts off. “I was Class of ‘04 at the academy, did my residency at Starbase 324, then I was chief of surgery on the _Alphecca_.”  
  
“This is your first time as CMO?”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“Ma’am,” I automatically say for the umpteenth time this week.  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“I get that a lot, don’t worry. But I was an NCO before I was an officer and I’m uncomfortable being called ‘sir’; I don’t care what Starfleet protocol says about it. What’s your specialty?”  
  
“Trauma surgery, ma’am.”  
  
That’s good. Emergency medicine is probably the single most necessary specialty where we’re going. “What about you, Dul’krah?”  
  
“I am Ver Eshalakh. My people’s military police clan. I attended Starfleet Academy after we joined the Federation. My last post was chief of security on the USS _Exeter_.”  
  
My combadge chirps. “_Captain, Bynam. Could you join me on deck 11 please? We’re about to test-fire the impulse engines._”  
  
“All right, I’ll be there in a minute. Can you two—”  
  
“We’ll find our way,” Warragul assures me.  
  
I reach the local control room for the saucer starboard engine and the slim, mutton-chopped Andorian waves me in. “All right, Kerensky, fire it up!”  
  
A tanned human with lieutenant’s pips hammers a series of commands into his console and a Bajoran chief petty officer studies the readouts. “Fuel transfer system online. Compressing deuterium. Fuel slugs transferring to reactor chamber. Ignition in five, four, three, two, one, mark!”  
  
There’s a low thrum and the floor begins to vibrate. Suddenly, I hear high-pitched squeal, fluctuating up and down. “Bynam, is that supposed to happen?!” I yell to be heard over the noise.  
  
But the _chaan_ is smiling, like my father used to when he was proud of my sister or me. “We snipes call it the ‘baby’s cry’, Captain. Just means it’s a new engine.” He walks over, checks an indicator, and lovingly strokes the bulkhead. “It’ll go away by the end of the shakedown cruise. All right, Kerensky, shut her down.”  
  
Then a Bolian E-2 in engineer yellow comes running in, pops an access panel and starts yelling at it. Then he stops, and then starts yelling again, louder. The third time, I finally bark, “Crewman! Front and center!” He stops, looks in my direction, and his eyes widen and he dashes over to me and comes smartly to attention. “Who are you?”  
  
“Ma’am! Crewman Apprentice Miq’doh Drohhl, ma’am!”  
  
“And what the _phekk_ were you just doing?”  
  
“Echo check, ma’am!”  
  
Bynam splutters and he, Kerensky and the CPO burst out laughing. I let them go on like that for a few seconds before asking, “Explanation, please?”  
  
“Sorry, it’s a, ahem, prank, Captain. Somebody, erm, told him to check if the engine was working by yelling. Supposedly if you hit the right frequency it resonates,” and he starts laughing again.  
  
“Drohhl, get back to work,” I order, shaking my head in mild annoyance. I may run a loose ship, but this is ridiculous.  
  
“Oh, come on, Captain,” Bynam says as we walk out. “You never did anything like that when you were in the Militia?”  
  
“No, but I once had Corporal Hoolud try to get me to, quote, ‘blow the DCA’. They had some trouble finding his front teeth after the next sparring session.”  
  


* * *

  
I run last checks but I’m too jazzed to sleep that night. I finally bribe Warragul for a mild sedative so I can get five hours’ uninterrupted rack time before the big day dawns.  
  
0700 ship’s time. I replicate an egg hasperat and a cappucino and wolf them down before pulling on my dress uniform and wasting ten minutes fighting the stupid necktie. I finally get to the bridge at 0740 and can relax.  
  
The rest of the brass finally deign to show up. I greet Admiral Quinn at the bridge door, happy that the old Trill took some time off to make a personal appearance. “Wouldn’t miss it, Captain.” He turns to Taurik. “I take it your wife is out there to break the bottle?”  
  
“Yes, and, Captain, she found your choice of Bajoran springwine somewhat illogical.”  
  
I roll my eyes. “It’s more logical than using French champagne, sir. Bajoran captain, Bajoran crew, ship’s named _Bajor_—you follow the progression here? Only reason they use Dom Perignon is because some admiral a hundred fifty years ago was blowing the CFO.” Vice Admiral Harnett glares at me but a petty officer to my right starts giggling.  
  
“You know, you might set a new precedent where every captain picks his own native bottle of booze,” Quinn comments.  
  
“Good! This is supposed to be the United Federation of Planets, as in _multiple_ planets, not just Earth. I stand by my decision, Admirals.”  
  
0800, finally. The viewscreen shows vid from the _Al-Birjandi_ as it takes one of the bottles of Indali Vineyards I brought from home in its tractor beam and hurls it towards the top of the saucer, aiming forward of the bridge. I hear Taurik’s wife L’Del over an audio channel: “In the name of the United Federation of Planets, I christen thee USS _Bajor_.”  
  
The bottle shatters against the hull and the springwine flash-boils in the vacuum. The bridge erupts in applause. “All right!” I bark. “Everyone to your stations! Sooner we get this shakedown run out of the way, sooner we can get back to our real jobs! Conn! Who’s on conn?”  
  
“I am, sir,” a black-haired human with a thin mustache says.  
  
“Ma’am or Captain,” I boredly correct him as I take a seat in The Chair. “What’s your name?”  
  
“Park, sir. Ma’am. JG Park Jin-Soo.”  
  
“Fine, Park Jin-Soo. Let’s get this show on the road. Begin launch sequence.”  
  
“Conn aye.” He pulls something on a chain out from under his shirt and kisses it, then stuffs it back down and reaches for the controls. “Warp core and impulse power online. Detaching all umbilicals and docking clamps.” There’s a thump through the hull beneath my feet, the transfer tunnel attached at the main shuttlebay separating. “We are detached.”  
  
“Port and starboard thrusters at station-keeping. Aft thrusters, ahead 20 KPH.”  
  
“Side jets, station keeping. Ahead 20 klicks,” he confirms. There’s a rumble through the hull as the replicator-fueled reaction rockets give the ship a kick, and slowly four-and-a-half million tons of starship and crew lurch forward out of the drydock.  
  
“Come to port, two-five-zero.”  
  
“Conn, aye, port two-five-zero.”  
  
“Impulse, ahead one-quarter.”  
  
“Ahead one-quarter, aye.”  
  
As the ship floats clear of the shipyard, I ask Park, “What was that? The thing you kissed a minute ago?”  
  
He turns in his chair and pulls a medallion out of his shirt. “Saint Joseph of Cupertino, ma’am. Belonged to my mother—she flew the _Venture_ for Pat Stanley during the Dominion War.”  
  
“You’re a Catholic?”  
  
“Among other things, ma’am. That a problem?”  
  
I snort. “I’m Bajoran, Park. I think we’ve got the market cornered on ‘religious people in a secular society’. Let’s get to the flight test range.”  
  
“Aye ma’am. Setting course.”  
  
We cruise out to the Oort Cloud with a short warp hop and are about to enter a particularly dense debris field when the communications officer, a Bajoran from Wyntara Mas Province, announces, “Captain, I’ve got a distress signal here. SS _Azura_, Bolarus IX registration, under attack by Orion pirates.”  
  
Greenskins. My face twists into a snarl as I turn in my chair to face Admiral Taurik. “Tell me you got me those quantum torpedoes.” He nods, then I see his eyes widen as recognition of what I’m doing dawns.  
  
Quinn voices it. “Captain, you’re not thinking—”  
  
“You’re damn right I am.”  
  
“We’re hardly the only ship in range.”  
  
“Yeah, but I’ve been alternately stressed out and bored out of my skull for five days straight, Admiral. Comms, tag us responding.”  
  
“Kanril, are you crazy?” Harnett cries.  
  
“Call it a live-fire exercise for all I care!” I hit the intercom key. “All hands! Battle stations! This is not a drill! Bridge to Engineering, I need everything you can get me out of the warp drive.”  
  
“_All right, uh, I can’t push it to redline until I know the ship better, but I can get you ten minutes at warp 9.98._”  
  
I look to Park. “More than enough, ma’am.”  
  
“Captain,” Taurik pleads, “you are not fueled for this.”  
  
“Yeah, we are. I bribed your fueling manager with one of the cases of Klatha Reserve I brought aboard.” His mouth opens to respond, then snaps shut. “Park, lay in a course. Warp 9.98, engage!”  
  
As the _Bajor_ whirls and streaks past the light barrier, Admiral Harnett complains, “You _are_ crazy. That’s going in my report to Starfleet Command.”  
  
“Permission to speak frankly, sir?”  
  
“You’ve been doing that for some time.”  
  
“You’re from Starfleet Science. Nobel Prize for Physics in 2392? Thirty peer-reviewed papers?”  
  
“Thirty-two.”  
  
“Congratulations. Have you ever fired your service weapon outside the range?” He looks at me and I know the answer is no. “I’m not a scientist, Admiral, and I’m not a diplomat, either. I’m a soldier, plain and simple. You point me at a battlefield, I will give you a victory. This is what I do, Admiral.” I look back to the plot. “This is what I do.”  
  
At this speed it’s barely a five-minute flight and we emerge in a debris field on the very fringes of the 40 Eridani C system, asteroids and dust that never formed a planet. Three red dots appear on the plot, flagged as enemy vessels C1 through C3. “The _Azura_’s disabled, Captain,” Tess notes.  
  
“Comms, open a channel.”  
  
“Channel open.”  
  
“Orion vessels, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship _Bajor_. You are ordered to release control of your helm. Heave to and prepare to be boarded.”  
  
The response comes back, “_Get fucked, Starfleet!_”  
  
“Yeah, you’ve got that backwards. Master Chief… Wiggin, wasn’t it?” The gaunt, brown-haired human at the sensor console nods. “Map their hulls.”  
  
I can imagine the reaction of the Orion boss. What I just did is the starship equivalent of a whack to the back of the head, painting them with our active targeting sensors at full power.  
  
Unfortunately it doesn’t have the effect I wanted. They turn and burn, heading straight for us. “They’re on an attack vector, Captain!”  
  
I press a palm to my face. “Idiots. Shields up! Tess, your turn. Straight at ‘em, Mister Park.”  
  
“Conn, aye.”  
  
“Admirals, hang onto something.”  
  
“I have a lock!”  
  
“Fire at will, Tess.”  
  
“Firing!” Half a dozen streams of searing light erupt from the upper and lower saucer phaser strips, lancing out at the oncoming corvettes. Three slam into the leader’s bow and the board shows an overload in their forward shields; two of the other shots split between the trailing corvettes.  
  
“Torpedoes!” I bark. “Full spread!” The forward tube goes into rapid fire and blue-glowing projectiles scream from above the deflector dish across the rapidly closing void between us. A searing white flash erupts and is just as quickly gone; contact C2 vanishes from the plot. “Comms.” The communications officer waves me on. “This is the USS _Bajor_. I say again, surrender now. There’s no way out of this.” The response proves difficult for the universal translator to handle but there’s something about my mother. “Yeah, that was the wrong answer.”  
  
Sickly green disruptor fire skitters across our forward shields. Tess fires the ventral strip again and hits C1 amidships as it streaks beneath us; there’s a secondary explosion and the ship begins trailing smoke and debris. “Conn! Hard about! Biri! Tractor beam! Do _not_ let them get mobile!”  
  
The view on the screen starts to whirl past vertically as Park flips the ship end-for-end, and Biri snares the two corvettes with the primary tractor. But they’re spread too far apart: they slow some but they’re still escaping. “Tess! Target their engines!”  
  
Their chase batteries fire, but ours is far deadlier. Searing lances of nadions reach out and crash into the rear shields of both ships. The stern arcs quickly collapse and our fire leaves the engines in flames.  
  
“_USS _Bajor_! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!_”  
  
“That a surrender I hear?”  
  
“_We surrender!_”  
  
I hit the intercom key. “Dul’krah! I want two security teams and two prize crews assembled. Sealable suits, they’re dealing with Orions. And Warragul, get a medical team ready to head over to the _Azura_. All hands, secure ship from battle stations, but remain at yellow alert.” I release the key, stand, and walk forward into the open area between the conn and ops stations, resting my hand on T’Var’s console. I stroke the arch overhead and whisper, “That’s my girl. That’s my good girl.”


	6. Downbelow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As USS _Bajor_ heads for the war front with the Klingons, some of Eleya's crew drink and grumble, and grumble and drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is a short vignette follow-up to "Shakedown Shenanigans". This was for [Unofficial Literary Challenge #7: "Skippy's List: Starfleet Edition"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1177554/unofficial-literary-challenge-7-skippys-list-starfleet-edition), but incorporated the "lower deck episode" prompt from [ULC 6: "Gods of Lower Decks in Wintry Timelines"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1175506/unofficial-lc-6-gods-of-lower-decks-in-wintry-timelines).
> 
> Juno Ichigaki in this story is supposed to be a South African national of Japanese descent, in case you're wondering about the slang.
> 
> Cast:
> 
>   * Captain Kanril Eleya, commanding officer: Jennifer Hale
>   * Geology Specialist, Second Class Juno Ichigaki, planetary sciences noncom: Michelle Krusiec
>   * Senior Chief Assault Squad Officer Athezra Darrod, security noncom: Matt Czuchry
>   * Lieutenant Junior Grade K'lak, son of Rokar, security officer: Tony Todd
>   * unnamed Bolian gunnery chief: Wil Wheaton

**Downbelow**

  
“I believe that stone belongs to me, sir.” The red-uniformed Klingon JG across the table growled in frustration and took a pull on his glass of Romulan ale as the blue-shirted brunette petty officer with almond-shaped eyes removed the captured stone from the _go_ board, grinning.  
  
Ten Forward on the USS _Bajor_ was reasonably uncrowded this time of day. The panoramic viewport on the front was dark, lit only by streaming stars as the vessel warped towards a transwarp conduit and the front lines of the Federation-Klingon War. Hardly what Petty Officer, Second Class Juno Ichigaki had enlisted for eight years earlier—the Japanese-South African was a geologist by training, not a soldier. But as the Alpha and Beta Quadrants slid ever further into chaos and more and more of Starfleet’s resources were diverted to its military functions, it was much harder to avoid getting assigned to the front lines.  
  
The Klingon, K’lak, twitched an eye at her, then placed a white stone on the replicated spruce _go_ board. Juno drew a black stone and fitted it into the formation she was building with a clack. K’lak started to play a stone but the intercom interrupted with an recording of an ancient bosun’s whistle. Juno recognized the command to listen up, and turned in her chair to the cluster off screens hanging from the ceiling at the center of the lounge.  
  
An athletically built Bajoran woman with flaming red hair and two parallel scars marring her left cheek appeared on the screen, lounging in the captain’s chair on the bridge. “_All right, I’ll try to keep this reasonably short. Some of you know me; most of you don’t. I’m Kanril Eleya, your _illustrious _captain._” Juno snickered at the Bajoran’s tone. “_I’m setting some ground rules. Rule number one, don’t call me ‘sir’. I hate that. You need to talk to me, address me as ‘ma’am’ or ‘Captain’._”  
  
“Well, that’s easy enough,” a sandy-haired Bajoran redshirt said from the bar.  
  
“_Rule number two, I have an open-door policy. You have a serious concern, bring it to me. If I’m doing something stupid, I want to know about it. If one of my officers is doing something stupid, I want to know about it. And if you think one of my superiors is doing something stupid, I want to know about it. If you’re right, I will back you to the hilt even if it means going up against Commander, Starfleet or the President, even. However, there’s one exception._  
  
“_Rule number three, hand-to-hand and weapons drills are mandatory for all specialties. That means _you_, Astrometrics. I’ve been getting reports from Lieutenant Korekh that some of you have been shirking. That stops _now_. I run a loose ship as long as the work gets done, but this _is _a combat starship. Next person to skip combat practice or battle drill without a note from Doctor Wirrpanda, I dock a week’s pay from their whole section. Person after that, I dock two. You can do the math._” There were some open jaws around the room at this, including Juno’s. “_Ditto vacsuit and hull breach drills, such as the one we’ll be running in three hours._” Kanril glared into the camera. “_This is not negotiable. Cross me on this and I’ll bust you so low you’ll need the __main sensor array to see above E-1._  
  
“_Fourth, an announcement. Lieutenant Korekh is forming an assault unit for emergencies. Combat experience is preferred, but we will take anyone with an A-minus or better on combat evals. That about covers it. We’ll hit the transwarp conduit in four hours and we’ll be at Deep Space K-7 soon after. Have a nice evening. Kanril out._”  
  
The screen flicked back to a football match that had been playing before the captain interrupted it. Juno let out a breath. “Eish! She’s a firebrand, isn’t she?”  
  
“Younger than I expected,” the redshirt from the bar said, bringing over a half-full bottle of Romulan ale.  
  
“What is that?”  
  
“I dunno, Romulan Republic stuff. Somebody named t’Thavrau. Weird aftertaste,” the Bajoran added, eying the label.  
  
“Probably khellid honey, Senior Chief,” K’lak said.  
  
“How do you know that, sir?” the Bolian gunnery chief sitting backwards on his chair next to them asked.  
  
“There was a Romulan expat family near where I grew up on Ajilon Prime,” K’lak said, placing a stone, then refilling his glass. “They raised khellids and hlai’hwy.”  
  
“You’re from Ajilon Prime?” Juno asked.  
  
“We’re not all _Qo’noSngan_.”  
  
“No, I mean… Isn’t that awfully close to the front lines?”  
  
“_J’mpoQ Qang_ is not interested in killing fellow Klingons,” the lieutenant answered in a disgusted tone. “The honorless _petaQ_ would rather aim his sword, and his abominable Orion allies, at unarmed Federation civilians.”  
  
“And that’s why we’re headed out there, sir,” the senior chief added.  
  
“I’m sorry, Senior Chief,” Juno said. “Were we introduced?”  
  
“Athezra Darrod,” the Bajoran answered, proffering a hand. “Ranking Security noncom and the head of the assault unit the captain mentioned.”  
  
“Juno Ichigaki, Planetary Sciences,” she answered, shaking his hand.  
  
“Anyway, at least with the Gorn you can trust them to follow the Alphecca Convention, and they’re hitting military targets exclusively. What are you guys playing?” he changed the subject.  
  
“_Go_.”  
  
“Sorry I asked.”  
  
Juno burst out laughing. “No, no! Ag shame, it’s a board game from where my family is originally from on Earth. I think your universal translator is acting up.”  
  
“Well, you know how it is: they try to keep the idiom filters up to date but there’s always one or two that they miss.” He watched the game for a moment. “So, what do you think of her?”  
  
“The captain?” Juno shrugged. “Seems like a bit of a hardass to me.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Ag, come on, you’re Security. I came in, I just wanted to study rocks, all right? Now I’m stuck on a warship.”  
  
“There’s a good reason for that, Specialist Ichigaki,” K’lak said, placing a stone. “The captain is former Bajoran Militia. She was a sergeant, took online courses and then got admitted to Starfleet Academy as a junior.”  
  
Juno gave the lieutenant a look. “Shame! She’s a mustang?”  
  
“I looked up her dossier. She earned one of their highest awards for valor and was wounded in action twice, the first time almost fatally.”  
  
“What about her last ship? I heard she got it blown up, most of the crew killed.”  
  
Athezra grunted. “She was part of a task force that went after a True Way ship that turned up in the war zone, CDS _Axon_. She led the boarding party herself, blasted a bunch of these wraith things—Davidans?”  
  
“Devidians,” K’lak corrected him.  
  
“—Devidians back to the Fire Caves and took the ship under tow, then the IKS _QarchetvI’_ warps in and tries to blow her out of space. She tried everything, didn’t have a chance. They only got out because the _Thy’lek Shran_ turned up and drove it off.”  
  
“Eish, that sounds like a MACO more than a naval gunner.”  
  
“She’s Militia,” Athezra said simply. “Every Militiaman a rifleman. I daresay she expects the same of us.”  
  
“Should she? I mean—”  
  
“I can tell you in all honesty,” the Bolian said, “that the Klingons and the Borg and whoever else won’t give a _bock_ what color your uniform is.”  
  
“Eish. Ag, outnumbered by redshirts. Hey! You in the gold!” she hollered to a random person at the bar. “Come here and back me up!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally wrote this, I had planned to continue with Eleya springing the hull breach drill early, then ripping Athezra and Ichigaki a new one for performance, but it wasn't coming together well so I stopped here.


	7. Dirty Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanril Eleya takes a war correspondent aboard USS _Bajor_ for a weapons drop to a Gorn Separatist leader.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally wrote "Dirty Business" for [ULC 15: "Stand for the Crew"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203158/unofficial-literary-challenge-15-stand-for-the-crew), and it proved a little controversial for various reasons. When I originally started writing her, I put her on a GCS but then came up with a character designed from the ground up as the polar opposite of Jean-Luc Picard: young, female, religious (though admittedly relatively secular by Bajoran standards), undiplomatic, bullheaded, temperamental, prior enlisted and still thinks more like a grunt than an officer, and generally very much a soldier first and foremost. Her upbringing on post-Occupation Bajor and her Militia indoctrination left her with very strong views on fundamental sapient rights and conduct of warfare, views that the Klingon Empire very much doesn't share. Plus, the Empire at this time is allied to the Orion Syndicate, and given the events she still has nightmares about (see the opening of "Shakedown Shenanigans") and the Orions' insistence on chattel slavery as a basic cultural practice (which she considers utterly abhorrent)... Well, she gave her already extensive vicious streak almost free rein for a very long time. She in fact wanted the Federation to escalate the war and counter-invade rather than just fighting on the defensive (and recommended such to the admiralty repeatedly), but the Romulan Republic's emergence, B'Vat's death, and the discovery of the Dyson spheres derailed that.
> 
> All this means, she's more willing to go much further to prosecute a war than your average Starfleet captain. To that end, I'm going to remind the reader ahead of time, **just because I wrote Eleya saying something doesn't necessarily mean I agree with it.**
> 
> Cast:
> 
>   * Wesley Allan Talbot, Federation News Service war correspondent: Chu Omambala
>   * Captain Kanril Eleya, CO, USS Bajor: Jennifer Hale
>   * General Th'shraak, Gorn Separatist leader: Steven Fry
>   * Lieutenant T'Var, operations officer and second officer, USS Bajor: Lisa LoCicero
>   * Commander Tesjha Phohl, tactical officer and first officer, USS Bajor: Claudia Black

**Dirty Business**

> _“If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you’re going to die. So they’ll talk. They’ll gloat. They’ll watch you squirm. They’ll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar._
> 
> _“So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”_  
— _Discworld: Men at Arms_ by Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE

  
_Federation News Service Netcast, filed by Wesley Allan Talbot, Archanis Sector Bureau, 2409.10.05 Earth Standard. Vid available at extranet keywords ‘FNN’, ‘Archanis’, ‘@FNNwat?’._  
  
With the USS _Bajor_ underway, Kanril Eleya awaits me in her ready room lounging in her chair, black-booted feet on her desk. The dossier pictures don’t do her justice. That unkempt flame-red ponytail is quite the eye-catcher, but the old scar mangling her cheek and the jaded look in her eyes belie her age. She’s one of the youngest Starfleet officers ever to make captain—certainly the youngest Bajoran, and one of less than ten women—but if I didn’t know better I’d put her somewhere north of thirty-five.  
  
“So, Mister Talbot. Office of Public Information kind of gave me short notice that you were coming aboard for Operation Poltergeist.”  
  
“They apparently had some trouble concluding the arrangements.”  
  
“Yes, let me be clear about that,” she says, scratching at her right ear and jangling the earring. “I agreed to let you come along only on condition that you don’t interfere and you stay out of my way and out of my crew’s way if we get into combat.”  
  
I’ve heard that one before. “Respectfully, sir—”  
  
“_Ma’am_, Mister Talbot. Yes, I know Starfleet protocol says to address officers as ‘sir’, but I transferred in from the Bajoran Militia and I was a noncom before I went to Starfleet Academy.”  
  
“‘Don’t call me sir, I work for a living’?” I quip.  
  
She laughs despite herself. “That’s my line!”  
  
“All right. Respectfully, Captain Kanril, I’m not _completely_ unfamiliar with how to behave aboard ship: this’ll be my fourth time embedded with a front-line unit. And I served, too.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Class of ‘82. I was on USS _Damascus_ as a protocol officer during the Hobus relief effort.”  
  
“Goldshirt, huh?”  
  
“That’s right.”  
  
She nods. “All right, I was out of line. Sorry.”  
  
“No offense taken, ma’am. So, what _is_ this Operation Poltergeist, anyway?”  
  
Kanril’s explanation is terse and to-the-point. We’re meeting up with a group of Gorn Separatists, people opposed to the Hegemony’s status as a vassal state of the Klingon Empire, to deliver supplies. The location is classified of course: the Klingons watch FNN, too. It’s a several-hour hop from the starbase to the destination. We cross at a weak area of the Federation-Klingon border where the early warning posts on both sides were knocked out earlier in the war, running at yellow alert from the moment we hit enemy territory.  
  
A gray-green planet appears as we decelerate. The communications officer, a stumpy blonde Tellarite, opens a channel and Kanril speaks into the microphone built into the arm of her chair. “Targs like ice cream when it’s cold.”  
  
There’s a pause, then the Tellarite announces, “We have the coordinates, ma’am.”  
  
“Park, set a course.”  
  


* * *

  
A bronze-colored Gorn roughly the size and shape of a kodiak bear greets us as we beam into a meadow surrounded by conifer trees under a gray, cloudy sky. “General Th’shraak, it’s been too long,” the captain addresses him, her hand disappearing into a huge, scaly paw.  
  
“At least six months, Commander Kanril,” the towering Gorn rumbles in return. Some quirk of the Gorn language means the sibilant hisses and growls leak through the universal translator.  
  
“She is _Captain_ Kanril now,” Lieutenant T’Var corrects him. The slim Vulcan woman is operations officer of the _Bajor_.  
  
“Congratulations, then. I trust you had no problems reaching us?”  
  
“No, but you know the drill: clear out after we leave, just in case. Hey!” she snaps at a pair of yellow-shirted operations crewmen hefting a heavy crate. “Be careful with that! It goes boom!”  
  
Curious at her wording, I step over to the stack of crates while she carves the two goldshirts a new one and discreetly pop one open. I barely have time to be surprised at the sight of stacks of matte black Nyberrite-built disruptor rifles when T’Var speaks in my ear and I nearly jump out of my skin. “Mister Talbot, you are obstructing the operation.”  
  
“Captain Kanril, you didn’t tell me you were delivering _weapons_!”  
  
“You didn’t ask. No, _that_ one goes _there_, _that_ one goes _there_!”  
  
“You implied this was a humanitarian mission.”  
  
Th’shraak rears up to his full height. “We have replicators to supply food and medicine,” he snarls, “but J’mpok’s occupation forces will not be removed with _bandages_. Once again, your Federation has been most kind, Captain Kanril.”  
  
“You’re welcome, sir.”  
  
Before I can say anything else, the captain’s combadge chirps. It’s Commander Phohl, the first officer. “_Captain, we just picked up a warp signature of a _QIn_-class heavy raptor entering the system._”  
  
“Rrg, _sher hahr kosst_. You think they’ve spotted us yet?”  
  
“_Unlikely; we’ve been powered down so they can’t see us on passive, but she’s not a small ship._”  
  
“Th’shraak, you’re—”  
  
“Our ship is landed on a comet in the Oort cloud, and our shuttle is secreted in a cavern near here. They won’t find us.”  
  
“They will if you don’t get moving. T’Var, get everything offloaded, double time.”  
  


* * *

  
I’ll skip over the harrowing but mercifully brief confrontation with the Klingon raptor. The _Bajor_ suffered minor damage to the engineering hull and ten wounded, but Kanril reduced the IKS _yInmey ghangwI’_ to a blazing wreck; they were sending a distress signal when we left.  
  
As we warp back towards the Federation border and relative safety, I manage to corner Kanril as she’s leaving the ship’s sickbay. “So?”  
  
“‘So’ what?” she says, heading for a turbolift. “Bridge.”  
  
“So how long have we been arming the Gorn Separatists?” I ask her as the doors close.  
  
“For about sixteen months at this point. I don’t know the exact number.”  
  
“And you don’t see a problem with that? I mean, I’m no fan of the Klingons, but I don’t think trying to overthrow a foreign government by arming terrorists—”  
  
“All right, I’m going to stop you right there,” she says, stalking into her ready room and replicating a glass of water. “My superiors evaluated the situation very carefully before Poltergeist was approved. We’re delivering aid to help free a conquered people from foreign occupation, and the most effective way for them to do that is through asymmetric warfare. The condition of our aid was that the Separatists limit their attacks to legitimate military targets, which they were already doing. Th’shraak and his men are _not_ terrorists and they never were.”  
  
“And the Prime Directive? By doing this the Federation is interfering in a foreign political dispute.”  
  
Her hand tightens on her water glass and her features take on a hard edge. “Yes, the Federation Council made that argument about the occupation of _my_ homeworld as well. Let me show you the result.” She taps her console and a map appears on the wall screen. “That’s a mass grave that was unearthed four months ago outside the old Cardassian concentration camp on the Perikian Peninsula. Current estimate, five thousand bodies.” She clicks it back off. “Any questions?”  
  
“So, this is some… displaced vengeance?”  
  
She rolls her eyes. “No! I wasn’t even _alive_ during the Occupation. It’s not about that. Not specifically, anyway: it’s about _prevention_. If we sit by and allow innocent people to be targeted without retribution, it only encourages the aggressors. And if we don’t intervene to prevent such acts when we could have, we’re not being noble, we’re just _cowards_. Besides,” she adds, taking a sip of water, “every Klingon who dies from a Separatist disruptor or roadside bomb is one less I have to kill myself. Win-win.”  
  
“But don’t you think a peaceful solution—”  
  
“I’m not a diplomat, Mr. Talbot. I’m a soldier, and I will _not_ allow crimes against sentience to go unanswered if I have any say in it. I saw what the Klingons did to the colony on Gamma Hromi IV when we couldn’t get there in time. Anything of value hauled off, houses blasted apart with families inside, bodies of people who never picked up a weapon in their lives, hacked to death with bat’leths and left to rot in the sun. And as for the greensk—the _Orions_?” She lets that dangle.  
  
“And the Undine?”  
  
“Had nothing to do with J’mpok picking a fight with us, and were just an excuse with the Gorn. It’s about a century past time the Klingon Empire learned that actions have consequences. You know what the second thing my drill instructor in the Bajoran Militia taught me was?” I shake my head, curious. “Never start a fight. _Always_ finish it.”  
  
My interest is piqued. “What was the first thing?”  
  
“_Never_ point a phaser at someone unless you’re ready to pull the trigger.”


	8. The Road Not Taken (AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What If?"
> 
> What if Eleya had stayed in the Bajoran Militia in 2401 despite the shutdown of the fleet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was also for [ULC #7: "Skippy's List: Starfleet Edition"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1177554/unofficial-literary-challenge-7-skippys-list-starfleet-edition), for a prompt asking a "What If?" scenario.
>
>> Every Captain has one big defining moment that started them on the path to the big chair. What if that moment never happened?
>> 
>> Write a day on your ship in an alternate universe where your Captain never became such. Alternatively, write a day in your Captain's life without Starfleet/the RRF/the KDF.
>> 
>> For example: She died in that fight with the Orion raiders. He dropped out of the Academy after losing a friend on that training cruise. She chose to join the Gorn separatists instead of trying to prove herself to the Klingons. He decided to go civilian instead of military, and won a Nobel Prize for his work on transdimensional abominations. She paid a little more attention while fleeing the secret police and sacrificed herself for her lover. He signed on with a different ship as a mercenary and never met his wife.
>> 
>> How is the universe different in this alternate timeline? How is your ship different? How is the Captain different (if he/she exists in this timeline)?
> 
> So yeah, it's an AU of an AU. Very meta.
> 
> This also features my Fed Rom, Morgaiah t'Thavrau, and the Romulan language used at the restaurant is genuine Rihan (I'm co-admin of a Romulan language group on Facebook). I adapted the mission "Second Wave" for this.
> 
> Cast:
> 
>   * Captain Kanril Eleya, chief of security, Deep Space 9: Jennifer Hale
>   * Brigadier General Ro Laren, Bajoran Militia flag officer: Michelle Forbes
>   * Commander Karen Andrews, XO, Deep Space 9: Stella Quinn
>   * Hadron, bartender at Quark's: James "Borticus" Randall
>   * Captain James Kurland, CO, Deep Space 9: James "Borticus" Randall
>   * Dirin Kos, cargomaster, _SS Second Chance_: Christopher Judge
>   * Commander Morgaiah ir'Sheratan t'Thavrau, CO, ch'M'R _Aen'rhien_/RRW _Bloodwing_: Dina Meyer
>   * S'taass, ambassador for the Klingon Empire: Charlie Adler
>   * Subcommander Sarsachen i'Amriel tr'Sauringar, XO, ch'M'R _Aen'rhien_: Christopher Eccleston

**The Road Not Taken**

  
“So we’re still not sure, Captain Kanril. Lieutenant Zara thinks the problem’s in the interface connections, Kora Lorn thinks it’s an EPS issue, and Captain Kurland is starting to think it’s a case of PEBCAC.”  
  
“‘PEBCAC’?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at the dark-skinned Perikian in the chair to my right.  
  
“‘Problem exists between console and chair’,” Staff Sergeant Morai answers with a grin. I snort into my glass of kava juice.  
  
“Has anybody considered that the wormhole itself might be acting up?” Ro suggests from across the table. “I mean, I’m just a shooter, not a squint, but—”  
  
“It’s a possibility,” I allow, wiping my face off on my sleeve. “_Phekk_, if it is, the Prophets had awesome timing, what with this conference and all.”  
  
“Mm,” Ro grunts. “Speaking of which, how are we doing on the additional security?”  
  
Commander Andrews, an older brown-haired human woman with an accent, answers, “Conference room and Ops are being swept for bugs at random intervals, your 4th Regiment, 2nd Battalion is all here and in position, and the guns are fully manned.”  
  
“I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be, then,” the graying woman answers with a nod. Andrews stands and we stand with her. Ro raises her right palm to the side of her face and the rest of us quickly follow.  
  
“General,” she acknowledges, returning the Militia salute as a courtesy.  
  
A blue-and-gold light illuminates the Deep Space 9 wardroom as Andrews leaves. “There it goes again,” I comment, glancing up. The Celestial Temple is swirling open as if there’s a ship coming through, but nothing emerges or enters. After a few moments the aperture swirls shut again.  
  
“Maybe the Prophets have gas or something, Captain,” Ro suggests in a sarcastic tone. I don’t dignify it with a response. Brigadier General Ro Laren’s an atheist and she’s been a bit of a thorn in my side since I landed the gig here at DS9 two years ago.  
  
Oh, well. Least I’m back in the black again, even if I don’t get to go anywhere. Beats being stuck dirtside.  
  
I finish my kava juice, salute Ro’s rank, and leave the wardroom, making my way to the Promenade.  
  
The place bustles with activity and I find it easy to lose myself in the crowd. I stop by a street vendor and pass him my credit card for a jumja stick and take a lick. “Huh, what’s with the flavor? It’s bitter.”  
  
“I’m trying a new flavor, Captain Kanril,” the Hathoni woman in the kiosk answers. “New import from the Republic, khellid honey.”  
  
“Maybe go a little lighter next time, Shegu.”  
  
Then I hear a thud and a crash from downspin. “_Ql’yah! _Stupid, incompetent _verengan!_”  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—Help!”  
  
I swear, pass the jumja stick to Shegu, and force my way through the crowd, drawing my sidearm as I go. A small crowd is gathered around an enraged Klingon who has a terrified Hadron backed up against the wall with his bat’leth. I don’t recognize the Klingon from the local consulate which means he’s probably part of the ambassadorial guard detail. A pair of boxes are on the floor, one with blue liquid starting to seep through.  
  
“I’m going to bleed you like a stuck targ!” the Klingon snarls into the Ferengi barman’s face.  
  
“Nononononono don’t hurt meee!”  
  
Then I jam the barrel of my phaser pistol into the back of the Klingon’s head and he stiffens. “Station Security,” I announce conversationally. “Drop it or I drop you.”  
  
“Officer, this _verengan_—”  
  
“—is not worth ending up in _ghe’tor _for being shot in the back. Drop. Your. Sword.”  
  
The meter-plus of steel clangs to the textured polymer floor and I shift the pistol to his back and tap my combadge. “Captain Kanril to Security. I got a two-forty at Promenade Forty-Six. Requesting backup.” I pat down the Klingon, retrieving a small arsenal. Two d’k tahg, a disruptor pistol, four throwing knives, a cosh, even a pair of grenades I found stuffed down his pants, and I’m going to have to wash my hands after this guy. “You guarding Ambassador S’taass or occupying the station, _taHqeq_?” I back away. “Turn around.”  
  
He turns, all right; he turns and roars, charging me, Hadron completely forgotten. I sidestep, trip him, and as he falls past I drop the pistol and snatch his arm, planting a knee in his back and twisting his arm behind him. “Let’s see, that’s one count of assault and now one of assaulting a law officer, and half a dozen weapons charges. You’re under arrest, asshole.”  
  
He curses at me, starts to struggle, then he roars in pain as I pull his elbow hard to the left. “I’ll break it,” I warn him, then reach around my back for a set of zipcuffs. “You do not have to say anything, and anything you say may be used against you. Remaining silent may also be used as supplementary evidence. You have the right to contact a family member or acquaintance and an attorney regarding your arrest, and you may be held seventy-eight standard hours without charge. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them?” He growls. “Answer the question!” I bellow in his ear as I snap the cuffs on him.  
  
“Yes,” he grits out.  
  
“Make way! Ma’am, we got this,” Gunny Boaol Umjohn says, pushing through the crowd. The gold-uniformed man from Dahkur Province grabs the Klingon and hauls him up and away. He’s one of my peacekeepers; he’ll make sure I get the credit for the collar.  
  
“What the _phekk _happened, ma’am?” his partner PFC. Brohm asks me.  
  
I shrug and flick a thumb at the Ferengi, who’s dusting himself off. “Ask Hadron. I was over at Shegu’s getting a snack when he started yelling.”  
  
“I was carrying two cases of Romulan ale and I couldn’t see where I was going!” he says. “Ran into him by accident and he starts… Oh no! Half of these are broken! Quark’ll fire me!”  
  
I turn around, hands on my hips, and smile at him. “If he does, come to me and I’ll break his legs for you.”  
  
“You mean that?”  
  
I give him the hairy eyeball. “You think of me as a woman who makes idle threats, Hadron?”  
  
“Uh, no.”  
  
“Good. Private, grab one of the cases and help him. You!” I point to two of the grayshirts who came with her. “Start taking witness statements. I want to nail this guy to the wall.”  
  
“Ma’am.”  
  
I go back for my jumja stick and then head for a turbolift. “Habitat ring.” A five-minute walk later and I’m at my quarters.  
  
I pull my gold Security uniform jacket off and head into the bathroom for a shower. Naturally that’s when the comm goes off. I answer it in my undershirt, snapping into a salute for Captain Kurland. “Sir. Thought you’d be a little busy getting ready for the conference.”  
  
“_Yeah, I got a complaint from Ambassador S’taass about you arresting one of his bodyguards._”  
  
“Tell him I said to take it up with the Home Affairs Minister,” I retort, going to the replicator for a synthale. “I got the guy in the act. Security cameras, thirty-some-odd witnesses…”  
  
He sighs. “_I know. I’m not disputing it was a good arrest, but, you know, diplomatic immunity. The guy’s out._”  
  
“Figures!” I yell over my shoulder. “Look, _phekk’ta _Klinks think the galaxy’s theirs and they can do as they please. Well, not on my station!”  
  
“_It’s _my _station, Chief Kanril,_” he answers with a modicum of amusement. He sighs. “_Bajor’s probably going to declare the guy _persona non grata_ but we can’t charge him._”  
  
“I don’t honestly give a flying _phekk_. This war is their fault; they can damn well live with the consequences.” I let out a breath. “I _really _don’t think this conference is going to change anything, not even after the Borg took out the entire Thirteenth Fleet at Vega two years ago.”  
  
“_Well, you’re a real ray of sunshine._”  
  
“I’m a realist,” I retort, taking a drag on my synthale. “J’mpok doesn’t want peace and as much as I like Ambassador Lizard-Breath, he’s going to toe the party line, at least in public.” I gulp down another mouthful of beer and wipe my mouth on my sleeve before reaching under the counter for something to spike it up. I hate the fake buzz from synthohol; one of these days I gotta remember to get a few real booze patterns from Hadron.  
  
Kurland grunts noncommittally. “_Are you guys at least ready to provide security? The conference is tomorrow._”  
  
I finish putting my impromptu boilermaker together. “Well, if this afternoon demonstrated anything, it demonstrated we can keep the Klingons from causing trouble.”  
  
“_All right. Oh, one other thing. The Romulans are sending one of their senior commanders, woman by the name of t’Thavrau._”  
  
“Was she on the list?”  
  
“_Last-minute addition._”  
  
“All right, I’ll pass the word to my people to expect…”  
  
“D’deridex_-class battlecruiser, RRW _Bloodwing_. She’ll be here tomorrow morning. I want you to liaise with her._”  
  
“Can do. Anything else?” The human shakes his head. “Then can I go take a shower?”  
  
“_Yes, you can go take a shower,_” he chuckles. “_Good night, Chief Kanril._”  
  
A shower and a boilermaker later I slip into my civvies and head back out to the Promenade for dinner at this new Romulan place that’s opened up in the last couple weeks. Dirin Kos meets me there and I jump into the big dark-skinned Wyntaran’s arms with a squeal and attack his mouth. “Good to see you,” I tell him after we break the kiss.  
  
“I’m here for a couple of days,” he says, putting me down and guiding me to a booth in the corner.  
  
A waitress, short blonde Romulan, meets us there. “_Shaoi ben. _Can I offer you something to drink?”  
  
“_Mnean stheirhn kre kheh’irhor u’hlai’vnau akhiy,_” I order. The Romulan takes it down on her PADD.  
  
“Since when do you speak Romulan, El?” Kos asks in surprise.  
  
“Since this restaurant opened up,” I joke as the Romulan moves off. “Learned it in officer school.”  
  
“That’s what, _four _languages now?” I nod. “You’ve got a real knack.”  
  
I change the subject. “So, how’s the Tzenkethi border?”  
  
“Actually Captain Takar wants to try our luck, make a run to Klaestron IV.”  
  
“You think that’s a good idea?” He’s cargomaster.  
  
“We can make a profit, and it’s a shorter haul than the Omega Piscium transfer station. So what have you been up to, El?”  
  
“Oh, the usual.” I start counting off on my fingers. “Two assaults, four burglaries, Garak’s got vandalized by the Circle again, and… oh yeah, one indecent exposure.”  
  
He looks up at the last one. “Hm?”  
  
“Impromptu lapdance at Quark’s. Kanar was involved.”  
  
The waitress comes back with our ales and I take a sip. Strong stuff and not particularly well-brewed, makes my eyes water.  
  
Kos and I talk about sports and politics and random nonsense as a course of hlai’vnau and another of jumbo mollusk come and go. A spicy soufflé with icing makes up our dessert and we amble back to my apartment. I kiss him hungrily at the door. “Shera out?” he whispers, referring to my roommate.  
  
“Planetside visiting family,” I answer huskily, pulling him inside.  
  


* * *

  
My alarm goes off way too early—Kos kept me up pretty late, not that I’m complaining—and I swing my legs off the bed and dig my dress blues out of the closet.  
  
“Official function?” Kos asks from behind me.  
  
“Kurland wants me to meet the Romulan Republic delegation.”  
  
“So that’s why you picked that restaurant.”  
  
“Just wanted to try the place.” I settle a sports bra into place and pull on my undershirt, then the royal blue dress uniform top, then I step back to the bed and lean into Kos for a kiss. He pulls my head to him and squeezes my breast and I have to half-fight to get away. “Let go, I gotta go to work,” I tell him, laughing.  
  
“See you this evening?”  
  
“Absolutely,” I agree, kissing him again. “Also, I got some leave coming. We could go somewhere nice on Bajor when you get back from Klaestron IV.”  
  
“Wouldn’t miss it.”  
  
I grab a hasperat from the replicator and munch on it on my way to one of the shuttlepads, where a Romulan Kestrel-class runabout sits idling on the other side of the airlock. A slim, weatherbeaten-looking Romulan woman with a couple patches of silver at the temples strides through the door in blue and gold robes. A sword is buckled at her waist. “_Aefvadh, Riov t’Thavrau,_” I say in formal Rihan, bowing.  
  
“You speak my language quite well,” she answers in Federation Standard. She’s got a light accent and sounds impressed at my lack of one.  
  
“Thank you. I’m Captain Kanril Eleya of the Bajoran Militia, station security chief. Captain Kurland’s getting ready for the conference but he sends his regards.”  
  
She nods. “I believe we’re short on time?”  
  
I nod. “Follow me, please. Back to your stations,” I tell the honor guard.  
  
Well, Kurland said ‘liaise’, but it doesn’t seem like she needs me. I drop the Romulan at the conference room and head back to the security office to do some paperwork. Later, one of my peacekeepers comes through the door hauling some alien from the Gamma Quadrant I don’t recognize that stinks of alcohol. “Drunk tank?”  
  
“Drunk and disorderly, ma’am,” the lance corporal answers.  
  
“Drunk tank.” I glance at her as she goes by. Red hair, tanned, works out. Could be me at that age.  
  
Then sirens start going off. “The _phekk_?” I grab my sidearm and stab vest and run out the door.  
  
The gateway to the Celestial Temple is open again, only this time there are ships coming through, a lot of them. Can’t tell what at this distance but everyone’s going nuts so it can’t be good. I hit my combadge. “Kanril to Ops! Andrews, what the _phekk _is going on?”  
  
“_Jem’Hadar! Jem’Hadar vessels on an attack vector, a lot of them! Their weapons are hot and they’re not responding to our hails!_”  
  
“_Sher hahr kosst! _Defense?”  
  
“_There’s too many of them; we need to evacuate! Chief, I need your authorization to—_”  
  
“Already on it! Broadcast an evac plan to all ships in the vicinity!” I key my combadge and link it to the P.A. system as I run for the conference room, taking a deep breath to steady my voice. “Attention, this is Security Chief Kanril. Attention. Deep Space 9 is under attack, and likely to be overrun. Starship crews currently in the vicinity may consider themselves deputized into the Bajoran Militia as evacuation ships. Failure to comply is punishable by thirty years on a penal colony! Starfleet and Militia personnel, prepare to repel boarders!” I stop in the security office to get the cells cleared out and grab my rifle and every deputy in the place, then continue to the turbolift, fishing my bayonet out from inside my uniform and fixing it under the barrel as I go.  
  
The dignitaries are already on their way out of the room and blood drips from the big Gorn ambassador’s right hand. “Madam Ambassador, you okay?”  
  
“It’s not mine,” she answers. “Admiral Trem is dead but I avenged him.”  
  
“All right, come on!”  
  
We force our way out onto the Promenade, Jem’Hadar already beaming in through the station’s shields. Overhead and below I can hear the thunder of the weapons emplacements, and outside the sky is lit up with lances and bolts of light in orange, purple, and green.  
  
A Jem elder unshrouds in front of me, his _kar’takin _raised to split me in half, and I bayonet him without slowing down. As I kick his dead weight loose from my rifle I hear steel sing behind me and glance over my shoulder. Seems the Romulan’s sword wasn’t purely ceremonial.  
  
“Where are we going?” Kurland asks, grabbing a rifle off the Jem’Hadar that t’Thavrau killed.  
  
“My shuttle has a cloaking device. It will not stand up to the Jem’Hadar in such numbers but we can use it to get through the shield and get to the _Bloodwing_.”  
  
“Shuttlepad Three,” I agree. I grab the other Jem’s rifle off him and throw it to a Starfleet crewman who’s just got a pistol, while t’Thavrau grabs a pistol, and we head off down the corridor.  
  
A Jem in a stall to the left fires into a group of civilians. I fire a burst and miss and he ducks behind cover again. The big Gorn ambassador charges his position and rips the door off its hinges; the Jem never has a chance. I hear a whine above us, swivel, and spit one on the catwalk through the head with a golden yellow lance. “Above us!” I throw Ambassador Skyl into the wall as Kurland and t’Thavrau fire, downing four of the five warriors; the other goes flat.  
  
“Kanril!” S’taass shouts, tossing an object to me. Jem’Hadar cloaking mine; Starfleet calls it a Houdini. I flick it to proximity detonation and toss it into a clump of Jem’Hadar that just beamed in at the replimat and it goes off with a loud crump; gore and shrapnel sprays everywhere.  
  
Another pair of Jems beams in right in front of us. I block a _kar’takin _strike with my rifle and kick the Jem in the knee with my boot; he grunts in pain and I knee him in the stomach and throw him off-balance. Out of the corner of my eye I see t’Thavrau fling her robes up to blind her opponent while she swings her sword and buries it halfway through his torso, then spins and headshots my Jem with her appropriated pistol. I shove the half-decapitated trunk out of my way. “Thanks!”  
  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
I turn my and see Kurland in a fistfight with one of them, weapons forgotten, and shoot the Jem in the back. “Way’s clear; let’s move!”  
  
We battle our way down to where some of the guys from the 4th have set up a barricade at the passageway to the docking arms. T’Thavrau leads the way to her runabout. “Move! Move! Move!” Ambassador Skyl pushes past me. “Gunny! Get those civilians in here!” Gunny Baoal hand-signals and a dozen more people cram inside. “Okay, we’re full! Come on!”  
  
Then a Jem beams in behind him, _kar’takin _raised, and buries it in the top of his head. “No!”  
  
Flashback to ten years ago. PFC. Davos with a knife in his chest. I force myself back to the present and fire, hitting the Jem square in the chest and throwing him against the far wall. The door slides shut and the airlock tunnel falls away, and the lights dim as the shuttle cloaks.  
  
Then the dark sky opens above us and the runabout leaps skyward, dodging low across the station’s docking arms and burning hard for space. I force my way through the people crowded into the cabin and take a seat next to t’Thavrau.  
  
In the distance I can see the emerald-green double hull and beak of her _D’deridex_-class hanging in the black. Beams in glittering green snap out from its emitters, swatting fighters and attack ships out of the sky. “_Bareldak _to _Aen’rhien_,” the Romulan next to me says in Rihan. “_Erei’Riov_ tr’Sauringar, we are inbound.”  
  
“_Understood. We’re coming to you. Wait, watch it! Jemhhadarsu warbird, coming in!_”  
  
An indicator panel lights up and t’Thavrau throws the ship into a corkscrew turn as the enemy ship, one of their bat-winged battlecruisers, opens fire. Bluish purple polaron bolts pass where we were two seconds ago. “I thought we were cloaked!” Kurland exclaims from behind us.  
  
“Antiproton sweep,” she says by way of explanation. “They pioneered it, we copied it.”  
  
“_Rekkhai,_” the voice named tr’Sauringar says as the lumbering warbird starts to yaw towards us, “_on my mark, come high right. Three, two, one, mark!_”  
  
T’Thavrau pulls back on the stick and swings us to the right as her battlecruiser’s forward batteries blaze green and terajoules of energy blast into space. Triple streams of light reach across the void, ripping a hole into the shields for the salvo of plasma torpedoes that follows. A wing tears off the Jem’Hadar vessel in the silence, air, debris, and bodies spilling into the vacuum. The guns fire again, skewering the hole and ripping through to the other side, continuing on into space to skitter off Deep Space 9’s shields, now constantly a-glitter from the Jem’Hadar bombardment.  
  
No more Jems pursue us as we make our approach to the hangar on deck five, the shields dropping for five seconds as we pass between the dual hulls. “Your orders, _Riov _Kurland?” t’Thavrau asks as the autopilot brings the runabout into a docking cradle.  
  
“We’ve got to get the diplomats to Bajor. Closest safe harbor and as far as I know their non-aggression pact with the Dominion is still in force.”  
  
“Hey, t’Thavrau,” I say, grabbing her arm. “You got any room on your gun crews? My original MOS was naval gunnery tech.”  
  
“_Rekkhai_, you’d better get up here,” tr’Sauringar warns through the intercom, “we can’t hold them much longer: there’s too many of them!”  
  
T’Thavrau unbuckles her wrist comlink and hands it to me. “Take this; it will guide you to the gun deck. Report to _Erein _t’Dhaviulla. I must get to the bridge.”  
  
I break away from the group and follow the directions as the warbird shakes around me under fire from enemy ships. The antecenturion in question, a short, pale Romulan woman with short black hair and wide hips, directs me to a spare console. I quickly familiarize myself with the configurations and start working.  
  
The ship jolts beneath me and the gun goes into rapid fire. The status display flicks to a new mission profile; we’re flying escort for SS _Second Chance_.  
  
Then it hits me. The _Second Chance_.  
  
Kos.  
  
Prophets.  
  
I mutter a quick prayer but there’s not much else I can do. I focus on keeping the guns running. Once there’s an overload and I have to swap out a part. A siren goes off, signalling a hull breach dozens of compartments away.  
  
Gradually the shaking from shield hits abates. The intercom is crackly, seems to have taken some damage, as t’Thavrau’s voice comes through. “All hands, all hands. We are clear of the battlespace. The Jemhhadarsu are not pursuing. _Mnekha._”  
  
The Romulans start cheering but I key my intercom key. “Kanril to t’Thavrau. Can I get a private line to the _Second Chance_?”  
  
“_Why?_”  
  
“My boyfriend’s the cargomaster.”  
  
“_I see. One moment._”

The screen clicks over to a staticky view of Captain Takar Edmen. Half-Bajoran, half-Boslic. “Edmen, it’s Eleya. Is Kos there?”  
  
“_Took a nasty gash from a _kar’takin _but he made it aboard before we undocked._”  
  
I let out a breath. “Thank the Prophets. Can I talk to him?”  
  
“_Sorry, I don’t have any cameras down in sickbay and we’re about to jump to Bajor._”  
  
“Fine, just make sure I get to see him.”  
  
“_I’ll do that._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I made S'taass female. That was actually an idea from Gregory "Sander233" Hodgson, the creator of the _War of the Masters_ shared universe on the STO forums. He was a lizard fan, and he decided that, like many Earth lizards, female Gorn were just bigger than male Gorn, and S'taass is huge.


	9. An Anomalous Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the Klingon War suddenly and inconclusively over, Kanril Eleya is shunted to peacekeeping duties she's not used to, and sent on a mission to New Romulus. Her ship becomes entrapped in a strange phenomenon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the second story I ever wrote for Eleya, and the first one to receive significant attention.
> 
> I've never been terribly fond of "negative space wedgie" stories; I typically find the usually butchery of science annoying. Nevertheless, I stuck my oar in for [Literary Challenge #63: "Nightmare Anomaly](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1153563/literary-challenge-63-nightmare-anomaly). After fighting the Klingons with increasing ferocity for four straight years, at the end of 2409 Kanril Eleya suddenly finds herself a soldier without a war. The galaxy is as confused as she: The war has frozen, with no formal armistice or treaty, but also no active fighting and the Federation and the Klingons cooperating on all fronts except their actual border. Not only does she have to adjust to this strangeness, but also to her feelings for her new operations officer, Lieutenant Commander Reshek Gaarra.
> 
> In the middle of all this, the _Bajor_ becomes trapped in a gravimetric phenomenon that starts to amplify the crew's fears.
> 
> Cast:
> 
>   * Captain Kanril Eleya, commanding officer: Jennifer Hale
>   * Commander Tesjha "Tess" Phohl, XO and tactical officer: Claudia Black
>   * Lieutenant Commander Reshek Gaarra, Second Officer and Operations Officer: Adam Baldwin
>   * Lieutenant Commander Bynam Ehrob, chief engineer: S. Scott Bullock
>   * Lieutenant Dul'krah, Clan Korekh, Chief of Security: Idris Elba
>   * Commander Birail Riyannis, Science Officer: Ursula Abbott
>   * Lieutenant (JG) Dr. Warragul Wirrpanda, chief medical officer: Wayne Blair
>   * Lieutenant (JG) Kaitlyn E. McMillan, Security: Karen Gillan
>   * Doctor Maela, Assistant CMO for Neuroscience: Melanie Smith
>   * Nalak Lang, head bartender: Mitch Pileggi
>   * Commander Sarsachen tr'Sauringar, concurrent with RRF rank subcommander, passenger: Christopher Eccleston
>   * Chief Hospital Corpsman Anoeza Watkins: Natalie Dormer

**An Anomalous Nightmare**

  
I collapse backwards in a blinding haze of pain, the double-bladed knife embedded in the right side of my belly. The Orion advances on me, wipes green blood from her crushed nose, cursing, and kicks me in the jaw, sending me sprawling against the bulkhead and burying the knife still further. “Bajoran _bitch_!” she grinds out. “You won’t die quickly for that.”  
  
I can’t move. I can’t scream. No breath will come out. The matron has her knee on my chest as she reaches out for my ear and begins sawing.  
  
And then she’s not a greenskin. She’s a human, long black hair, Asian features. Starfleet Science uniform, noncom’s insignia. Huge, bloody hole in her chest.  
  
“I’m going to kill you slowly, Captain, the way you killed me.”  
  
Captain? I’m a sergeant.  
  
Blood pours down my side as the ear comes away. I can’t move. I can’t scream. Suddenly the nightmare vanishes with a sharp, stabbing pain to my neck.  
  
I look around. I’m in my cabin on the _Bajor_. The pressure on my chest is Gaarra holding me tight. The pain in my neck was Warragul with a hypospray.  
  
“Eleya, are you all right?” Tess asks.  
  
The pain is still burning in my memory, vividly real, but both my ears are intact. I push Gaarra back before I realize I’ve got no clothes on. I grab at the sheets to cover myself but Warragul’s South Australian tenor says, “Relax, Cap’n, it’s nothing any of us here haven’t seen before.”  
  
He’s right, of course. Warragul’s my doctor, Tess is my workout partner, and Gaarra … Prophets, I still don’t even know what Gaarra is.  
  
Tess goes to my dresser and tosses me a set of underwear. “We paged you to the bridge four times but didn’t get an answer,” she explains, leaning against the chest of drawers, as I fiddle with the back close of the bra. “Commander Reshek volunteered to come looking for you, then he called me to override your door, and then _I_ called the doc when you wouldn’t wake up.”  
  
Gaarra gets off the bed and jogs over to the replicator. “Raktajino, one cream, double sweet,” he says, then digs a jumja stick out of the box on the shelf beside it. “Evidently we’re going to need to make a pit stop at DS9 at some point,” he comments as he walks back over and hands the drink and food to me. “You’re nearly out of these.”  
  
I slip my panties on under the covers as I ask, “So what’s so important that you had to wake me up at … Computer, what time is it?”  
  
Chirp. “The time is 0514 hours and 25 seconds.”  
  
“Yes, that.”  
  
“No idea,” Gaarra answers.  
  
I stare at him. “You don’t know why you woke me up?”  
  
“He means that we don’t know what the thing is that we woke you up for,” Warragul explains, somewhat unhelpfully.  
  
“Well, neither do I, so unless you want to explain it to me I’m going back to sleep.” I flop back against the pillow.  
  
“And neither does Birail.”  
  
I sit back up. “Okay, why don’t you start from the beginning?”  
  
“We’re stuck,” Tess says. “Gravimetric anomaly of some kind, came out of nowhere. Not causing any serious damage to the ship but it did something to the warp core and Bynam had to make an emergency shutdown.”  
  
I gulp down a mouthful of raktajino, tasting the bitterness of the Klingon liqueur. “How far are we from New Romulus?” We’re delivering a shipment of industrial replicators to a new orbital shipyard they’re constructing.  
  
“About half a light-year. Comms are down, too, and we’ve already tried sending a shuttle out on remote. Anomaly just sucked it right back down, tore it to pieces.”  
  
“Think the _Glyrhond_ could make it?”  
  
“I doubt it. Runabout’s SIF isn’t much stronger than a Type-8’s.” Tess hands me an undershirt and my uniform jacket and I shrug into them. I swivel my legs off the bed and stand up, then grab my trousers.  
  
We get to the bridge and somebody barks, “Captain on deck!”  
  
“As you were.” I turn to the person in question. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Then I take a closer look and wonder how I managed to forget the name of the only Romulan on the _Bajor_.  
  
“Tr’Sauringar. Sir.”  
  
“Right, sorry. Oh, and don’t call me ‘sir’. ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Captain’ is fine.”  
  
“Sorry, sir.” He coughs. “Captain.”  
  
Now it’s coming back to me. Commander Sarsachen tr’Sauringar, fifteen-year Starfleet vet hitching a ride to his next post. Apparently we’re permanently loaning him to the RRF or something: he’s been offered a job as XO of a warbird.  
  
I turn to the viewscreen. Dark blue lightning, a swirling pattern of energy. “Tell me more, Biri.”  
  
The Trill hands me a PADD. I yawn and peruse it but the technobabble is a little much. “So, basically you don’t know anything.”  
  
She rolls her eyes at me. “No, we know it’s about 350,000 kilometers in diameter, strong subspace distortion emanating from the center, and that it’s producing a gravity well roughly the strength of a G-type star.”  
  
Takes me a moment to dredge up the memory from a half-remembered astronomy class at the Academy—I was a naval weapons major—but G-type is your basic yellow dwarf, same size as Sol or my own sun B’hava’el. Not exactly an overpoweringly strong gravity field. “So why can’t we get away from it?”  
  
She opens her mouth to answer but a chirp from the intercom interrupts her. “_Security to Ten Forward! Security to Ten Forward!_”  
  
“The _phekk_?” I look at Biri. “You need me for anything?”  
  
“Not at the moment. I’ll call you when I know more.”  
  
I start for the turbolift but then stop. “Biri, random question. You ever have any Asian brunette noncoms in your department? Somebody who got run through and died?”  
  
She gives me a funny look. “Juno Ichigaki, Geo Specialist Two. Took a chunk of a mass spectrometer through the stomach when we were hit by that torpedo over Dreon VII. Why?”  
  
“No reason.”  
  
I head for the turbolift as she yells after me, “Really, you ask me about one of my dead specialists for ‘no reason’? What’s going on, El?”  
  
“Back to work, Riyannis!” I yell back. “Deck Ten,” I tell the turbolift.  
  


* * *

  
By the time I get there Dul’krah, Senior Chief Athezra, and Lieutenant McMillan have already arrived. McMillan starts to yell something (probably “captain on deck”) but I wave her off, reach up, and grab the big Pe’khdar by the shoulder. “What happened?”  
  
“Captain. All I know right now is”—he points to a bewildered-looking yellow-shirted Bolian crewman I can’t place, standing against a wall with Athezra holding a stunstick on him—“that man”—he points at a Caitian ensign in a red shirt whom Assistant CMO Maela is checking with a tricorder—“clubbed that man with the whiskey bottle on the bar.”  
  
I look over at the bar. Nalak Lang is grumbling something in Cardassian that my translator can’t make out as he cleans up part of the mess. There’s a half-empty bottle of Talisker on the bar nearby, with an evidence marker next to it. I jog over to Maela and the Deferi stands and salutes. “As you were, Doc. How is he?”  
  
“Unconscious, BFT to the head, probable MTBI.”  
  
“Okay, I need that in captain dummy talk, Maela.”  
  
“He got hit over the head twice with a whiskey bottle, hard.”  
  
Two corpsmen run in with a stretcher. “Three, two, one, lift!” They lever the Caitian onto the stretcher and Maela slaps her combadge. “Doctor Maela to transporter room. Four to beam directly to sickbay.” They vanish in a shower of blue sparks.  
  
I walk over to the Bolian, brush Senior Chief Athezra out of my way, and switch to my superior officer voice, doing my best to turn my face implacable. I’m told I do that pretty well. The scar helps. “Name, rank, station. Now.”  
  
He snaps to attention but looks frankly terrified. “Ma’am. Kuhbb Puso, Matter/Antimatter Specialist, Third Class. Main Engineering. Ma’am.”  
  
I slap my combadge. “Bynam, this is Eleya. Get to Ten Forward.” I turn back to Puso. “Well, Emmay-Three Puso, congratulations on getting ‘assaulting a superior officer’ added to your file. Would you care to provide an explanation for your conduct today, or should I let JAG handle that?”  
  
“Ma’am. No, ma’am.”  
  
I glare at him. “I don’t believe I was actually giving you a choice, Specialist.”  
  
“Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”  
  
“Please do.”  
  
“Ma’am. I _can’t_ provide an explanation.” I raise an eyebrow and gesture for him to continue. “Last thing I remember I was … I was in the break room trying to get in a mid-shift nap. I don’t remember leaving the room or coming to Ten Forward, and I especially don’t remember hitting Ensign F’oit with a bottle. Ma’am.”  
  
“Fifteen-plus witnesses say otherwise, Specialist,” Dul’krah says. “Athezra, take him to the brig.”  
  
My combadge chirps. “_CMO to Cap’n._”  
  
“Go ahead, Warragul.”  
  
“_I’m getting an awful lot of reports of sleep disturbances. Bad nightmares, people turning up in odd places and not remembering how they got there._”  
  
“How many is ‘an awful lot’?”  
  
“_Two dozen so far._”  
  
My mouth twists. We had a saying in the Militia. Once is a freak accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern. “Athezra, hold on a moment!” I yell as the dirty-blond senior chief half-drags the Bolian out the door. “Dul’krah, change of plans. Get this man to sickbay. Warragul, I want a full brain analysis on all the affected crewmen.” I pause. “And me.”  
  


* * *

  
I shuck the hospital gown, pull my bra back on and yank my undershirt down before sliding off the bed and pulling my pants back on. I throw the curtain open and step out into the sickbay corridor. I don’t claim to understand everything Warragul and Maela checked by a long shot but I recognized the questionnaire Dr. Shree gave me. Standard PTSD thing.  
  
I threw it away and told her to stay on-point.  
  
I walk over to Warragul and Maela. The Deferi scratches the front of her horn and says, “Well, Captain, we ran full psych panels on all of you and while we were at it five more cases came in. One serious: Lieutenant Kerensky, Commander Ehrob’s second officer, jumped off the third-floor catwalk in Main Engineering. Serious skull fracture; we’re not sure he’s going to make it.”  
  
“What do you know?” I say, stifling a yawn.  
  
Warragul reads off a PADD. “Elevated levels of acetylcholine and melatonin in the humans, equivalent chemical increases in the aliens. And we’ve all got unusually high levels of adenosine and its analogs.”  
  
I stare at him blankly. “Can I have that in Bajoran, please?”  
  
Corpsman Anoeza Watkins pushes past us with a PADD and a protein bar as Maela explains, “For some reason the affected crew, yourself included, are making chemicals that are causing us to get sleepy”—she punctuates this with a yawn—“and dream more.”  
  
I grab my uniform jacket off the coat rack. “And the connection to that grav anomaly is?” Warragul gives me a funny look and I scoff at him. “Oh, come on, we all know that’s where this is headed. Every time we or anyone else hit an unexplained anomaly like this in the past it’s made _something_ weird happen.” I slap my combadge. “Biri, got anything else on that anomaly?”  
  
“Nothing much else, although the gravity well seems to be deepening slowly at the center.” I hear a yawn. “Mmf. Sorry, El.”  
  
“Seems to be an epidemic of that going around. Anything else?”  
  
“Reading some omicron particle currents.”  
  
“What’s an omicron particle?”  
  
“Subatomic, produced by a few types of matter/antimatter reactions and toxic to some life forms, but they’re not common.”  
  
Corpsman Watkins walks back by with another protein bar. I say ‘another’ because she’s eaten less of it than the one she had before. “Biri, feed everything into the computer and see what we get.”  
  
Warragul grabs Watkins by the shoulder as she passes him. “Did you skip brekkie, Corpsman? That’s your fifth protein bar since you came in.”  
  
She looks at him angrily. “Get off me.” Then her face twists. “Sorry, sir. For some reason I’m feeling grumpy and I’ve been hungry since I got up.”  
  
“You sleep all right?” Maela asks, raising a tricorder.  
  
“Like a baby, sir.”  
  
“Well, you’re not showing the symptoms but there’s something else weird.” She turns to me and Warragul. “She’s putting out a lot of psilosynine.”  
  
“Psilo-what?” I ask.  
  
“It’s a neurotransmitter involved in Betazoid telepathy,” Warragul explains. “Watkins is about a quarter Betazoid.”  
  
“Closer to a third, actually, sir. I don’t really have any control and it mostly just helps my bedside manner.”  
  
I pinch my chin. “Is it possible that _you_ aren’t the one who’s hungry?”  
  
“What, that I’m picking up somebody else and thinking it’s me?”  
  
“Oh, it’s possible,” Warragul confirms. “When I was on peds rotation during my residency I treated a Betazoid kid who was convinced she had a broken foot. There wasn’t anything on the x-ray. Turned out it was her sis.”  
  
“Full-bloods get more training in that, ‘cause they need more,” Watkins says. “But what does this have to do with the price of coffee?” Off my look, “Never mind, ma’am, it’s something my dad used to say.”  
  
“Well, I’m wondering—”  
  
The intercom chirps, and Biri’s voice says, “_Bridge to sickbay. Finished the computer search and you’re not going to believe this. File reference Zulu-5353-Tango-Alpha-6._”  
  
Warragul brings it up on a screen. The file shows a picture of a red and gold cloud. “What am I looking at?”  
  
“_Something _Voyager_ ran across their third week in the Delta Quadrant, stardate 48546.2._”  
  
“A life-form?” Maela says, stifling another yawn.  
  
“_Yeah. They tried to harvest omicron particles from it for replicator mass, but that was before they figured out it was alive._”  
  
“So, this thing we’re trapped in—”  
  
“_Probably something similar._”  
  
I look over to Warragul. “You’re thinking it too, right?”  
  
“What, that this gravitic anomaly of Biri’s is trying to eat us?”  
  
“We’ve seen weirder.”  
  
“Not _this_ weird,” Maela disagrees.  
  
“Only theory we’ve got, though. And it maybe fits. If this thing has enough of a mind for Watkins to pick up on it, maybe it’s what’s causing the behavior changes in the crew. Hey, you thought ‘grav anomaly that wants to eat us’ was weird, try ‘grav anomaly that eats dreams and nightmares.’ Maybe Puso and Kerensky were sleepwalking. Even explains the attack on the ensign: I know my nightmare was…” I stop, shuddering. That brought back memories I’ve tried to forget for ten years.  
  
“Ma’am? You all right?”  
  
“Yes, I’m fine. I just, I need a moment.”  
  
I head out the door to the hall, pushing past the security noncoms guarding Specialist Puso. I make it to the turbolift. “Bridge.” I lean against the wall, struggling to control my breathing.  
  
No. No. I am _not_ going to break down. I’ve got people depending on me.  
  
A small voice inside asks, Like your gun crew and the wounded murdered in their beds on the _Kira Nerys_ depended on you? Like a hundred fifty-seven people on the _George Hammond_ depended on you? Like the thirty-five killed on the _Bajor_ in the last six months depended on you?  
  
Shut up, I tell the voice. Now I’m just angry. My head raises to look at my faint reflection in the control panel, brow furrowed, cheek scar creased.  
  
And when I’m angry, I need a target.  
  
The door slides open on the bridge and I look out the viewport.  
  
I’ve got one.  
  
“Tess, bring us to battle stations,” I order.  
  
“Aye, ma’am.” She hits the intercom. “All hands, battle stations. You’ve got a plan, ma’am?” she asks over the klaxons now wailing throughout the _Bajor_’s halls.  
  
“Full spread of quantum torpedoes seems like a plan to me. If it’s alive, I can kill it.”  
  
“_What?_” Biri gapes at me. “We don’t even know what that’ll do! And you’ll be killing the only known example of a—”  
  
I cut her off. “I’ll be killing a threat to my ship and my crew, and to any other crew that comes through here thinking it’s a safe area of space like it rightly should be. Have you got any better ideas?”  
  
“I don’t know, _talking_ to it, maybe?”  
  
“How? Flashing our running lights at it? Morse code subspace pulses from the deflector? Or, I know, how about I go out on the hull and wave my arms around!” I hear a low rumble through the ship. “Somebody tell me what the _phekk_ that noise was, now.”  
  
Gaarra calls from his console, “Reading some minor buckling on the saucer armor plate, over compartment Four-Bravo-Romeo. Nothing serious right now, but it’s going to get worse. It’s this gravity field, it’s starting to wear down the SIF. We’ll probably be dead in fifteen minutes.”  
  
“So now we’ve got a time constraint, too. Any better ideas, Riyannis?”  
  
She glares daggers at me. I glare right back and she turns away. “I want it on the record that I strongly disagree with this course of action, Captain.”  
  
“Noted. Tess, disengage the blast shapers on the next five torpedoes in the forward tube and calculate a firing solution for the distortion at the center of this thing.” I take my seat.  
  
The Andorian’s antennae dance as she bangs out a series of commands. “I have a solution.”  
  
“You may fire when ready,” I say around another yawn.  
  
“Firing, forward tube.” Five glowing blue quantum torpedoes shriek from under the saucer and vanish into the distance in seconds.  
  
“Time to target?” I ask.  
  
“Forty seconds.” Another low-pitched rumble I feel in my bones. “Damage?”  
  
“More buckling, starboard nacelle. Revising safety margin downward.”  
  
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, impact.” The torpedoes vanish from the plot.  
  
Half a second later the ship, which still had the impulse engines at full reverse, leaps backwards as the gravity well vanishes. I frantically order all stop. “Report!”  
  
Biri shouts, “Conn, get us the hell out of here, it’s reforming!” Lieutenant Park spins the ship hard to starboard and fires the impulse engines. “I think you just bruised it, El!”  
  
“Bridge to Engineering, I need warp power _yesterday_!”  
  
“_I need five more seconds!_” Bynam radios back. “_There, try it now!_”  
  
“Conn! Warp one! Punch it!” The _Bajor_, still twisting to starboard, suddenly leaps forward, accelerating to the speed of light in under a second, the stars blueshifting ahead of us.  
  
Suddenly a pressure on my mind I didn’t even realize was there vanishes and I’m not tired anymore. I let out a breath. “Stand down from battle stations and chart a new course. Biri, I want everything we have formatted for transmission to Starfleet Command. And New Romulus Command. Hell, even the Klingons need to know about this one. I’ll make the report myself. And broadcast in the clear to all ships to give this area a wide berth for the time being.” I stand and stride into my ready room.  
  
“Really, Captain, your first thought is ‘quantum torpedoes, full spread’?” I nearly leap out of my skin, reflexively spinning and swinging at the voice. My fist makes contact with only the wall and I start swearing, cradling my split knuckles in my shirt and leaning over to pick up the medal I knocked off a hook.  
  
I turn and face a man perched on my desk wearing an old-style Starfleet uniform, early ‘70s vintage. Shortish dark brown hair, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. But something about him feels intensely _wrong_, like he _can’t_ exist. “_Sher hahr kosst. Ieyet kasain tof chin’ktah._”  
  
He winces and inhales through closed teeth. “Language, Captain.”  
  
“Are you telling me this was one of your _games_, Q?”  
  
“One of my…?” He scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself. Overranked little spitfire like you isn’t half as interesting as Picard. Where is he, anyway?”  
  
“Thought you were supposed to be omnipotent. He retired decades ago, and get the _phekk_ off my desk! You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”  
  
“You’d have some trouble comprehending it if I did. You thought the Borg and the Iconians were trouble?” He gives me a pointed look and hops over to my trophy wall. “I was actually coming to bail you out, but you seem to have solved that problem on your own, for the moment.”  
  
“What are you saying?”  
  
“That the puppeteer is also a puppet.” He turns to me and gives me a critical look. “You’re actually not bad-looking for a lower life form.”  
  
“Don’t get any funny ideas.”  
  
“Not like that. Up here,” and he pokes me in the head. “You’ll find your way.” There’s a flash behind my eyes and he’s gone.  
  


* * *

  
“Can we trust him?” Tess asks. We’re in the conference room.  
  
“Based on what I’ve read of Q Prime’s interactions with Starfleet crews in the past,” I reply, “I don’t know. He’s never exactly untruthful, and he did warn us the 359 cube was on its way, but he approaches it like a big game.”  
  
Warragul growls, “Yeah, fucking with our heads is the game. I say trust but verify.”  
  
“Me too, Doctor. Me too.”  
  
The intercom chirps. “Bridge to Captain Kanril, we've hit the outer marker. Admiral tr’Kererek wants to speak with you.”  
  
I stand. “Come on, people, back to work.”


	10. Reality Is Fluid, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An accident during a politically charged science mission propels Kanril Eleya and the USS _Bajor_ into a greater misadventure, setting the stage for a dramatic shift in the nature of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reality Is Fluid, originally written for [Literary Challenge #64: "The New Frontier"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1155105/literary-challenge-64-the-new-frontier), takes place after the mission "Surface Tension", which in this 'verse involved an attack by Odo-led Jem'Hadar to destroy the planet-killer (Worffan101 wrote that one before we merged our universes). It also involved Eleya interrupting Ambassador Jiro Shithead—er, Sugihara—instead of Va'Kel Shon, and then hacking through all the political BS in her usual ill-tempered and profane way (including but not limited to calling S'taass out as a collaborator and telling Captain Whiny Bitch of the IKS Whineatyou' that she'd happily turn her into a greasy stain on the pavement but they've all got bigger problems). She gets away with it in large part because Captain Shon, the Bajoran ambassador, and, ironically, S'taass stand up for her, so they pack her off to DS9 in time for this story to get her out of sight.
> 
> I actually got to have this story read by an editor at Baen during a slush panel at Illogicon IV a couple years ago. The panel liked the POV work but thought I front-loaded it with too much exposition.

**Reality Is Fluid, Part I**

> _Yeah  
Mmm hmm_
> 
> _I can't believe the news today  
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away  
How long? How long must we sing this song?  
How long? How long?  
'Cause tonight  
We can be as one, tonight_
> 
> _Broken bottles under children's feet  
Bodies strewn across the dead-end street  
But I won't heed the battle call  
It puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall_
> 
> _Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Sunday, bloody Sunday  
All right, let's go!_
> 
> _And the battle's just begun  
There's many lost, but tell me who has won?  
The trenches dug within our hearts  
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart_
> 
> _Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Sunday, bloody Sunday_
> 
> _How long? How long must we sing this song?  
How long? How long?  
'Cause tonight  
We can be as one, tonight  
Tonight (Sunday, bloody Sunday)  
Tonight  
Tonight (Sunday, bloody Sunday)  
Tonight  
Oh, let's go!_
> 
> _Wipe the tears from your eyes  
Wipe your tears away  
I'll wipe your tears away  
I'll wipe your tears away (Sunday, bloody Sunday)  
I'll wipe your bloodshot eyes (Sunday, bloody Sunday)_
> 
> _Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Ah  
Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Ah, yeah, let's go!_
> 
> _And it's true we are immune  
When fact is fiction and TV reality  
And today the millions cry (Sunday, bloody Sunday)  
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die (Sunday, bloody Sunday)_
> 
> _The real battle is begun (Sunday, bloody Sunday)  
To claim the victory Jesus won (Sunday, bloody Sunday)  
On_
> 
> _Sunday, bloody Sunday  
Hey, yeah  
Sunday, bloody Sunday_   
[— “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4vblG6BVQ)

  
“This project ushers in a new era of cooperation between Cardassia and Bajor. We are healing the wounds of the Occupation and the Dominion War, blah blah blah.” Okay, that last part was me.  
  
I hate this. I hate having to wear my dress whites. I hate having to sit still for pompous, overweight, overpaid politicos like First Minister Arvel Selan when the Bajor Cup is going on. (Seriously, I’ve got a hundred credits on Tomis Lee in the quarter-finals and they’re playing right now!) I hate getting pulled off more important duties like the Jenolan patrol to listen to these verbosities. I hate this insane idea for invasive scans of the Celestial Temple. Actually, I’m not alone on that last one: the Vedek Assembly, Kai Kira, _and_ Captain Kurland and Admiral Marconi all filed formal protests all the way up to the Federation Council. One or two of the more conservative vedeks actually threatened Arvel with excommunication if he let the project go forward (although that was vetoed, unfortunately).  
  
Most of all, I hate being forced to choose between being Bajoran and being a Starfleet officer. I’ve been ordered by my legal chain of command to take part in this thing, because it’ll supposedly look good for the Federation to have a Bajoran captain with a fifteen percent-Bajoran crew, commanding a ship _named_ USS _Bajor_, testing out this new trans-temporal/planar sensor array, and though I’ve protested to as many people as I can think of, at this point it’s basically either do it or resign.  
  
Supposedly I’m representative of some overpaid analyst’s idea of the “new Bajor” since I’m part of the post-Dominion War generation, and it’s in my file that I’m not particularly religious (a “Christmas and Easter Christian”, Warragul calls it, although I think that’s exaggerating). But though I may not put much stock in all the prophecies and other gibberish I’m still Bajoran and I still worship the Prophets. At the same time, objectively I know these people know what they’re doing and that therefore it’s not really important enough to resign my commission over. So I’m stuck.  
  
Oh, good, that damn windbag’s finally shut up. I make a mental note to vote for, well, whoever the _phekk_ is running against him in the next election, and force myself to pay attention to Admiral Marconi, commander of the Beta Ursae Fleet Area. Poor man looks about as pleased to see the Cardassians here as the rest of Bajor who listen to the news. “… We are, _ahem_, very pleased to have with us Professor Atani Dukat, representing the Cardassian Science Ministry, who will be providing the briefing.”  
  
What, Castellan Lang couldn’t be bothered to attend in person? Shows how important this stupidity _really_ is to Cardassian-Bajoran reconciliation. “Thank you, Admiral. I’m honored to be here on Deep Space 9, where so many momentous events during my childhood took place.” Yeah, I just bet you are. Then I realize she’s looking at me. “And I’m humbled to be able to meet a Bajoran in a Federation uniform, look her in the eye, and be able to tell her, I’m sorry. For _everything_ my people, and especially my father, the late, unlamented Gul Skrain Dukat, did to _both_ your peoples.”  
  
Oh. _That_ Dukat. Then the rest of the sentence percolates through my brain. “Um. Uh, thank you, I guess.”  
  
“Small consolation, I’m sure. It’s going to take a lot longer than forty years to heal those wounds. I’m just hoping to contribute a little.”  
  
The briefing doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know. The project, codenamed Schrödinger’s Butterfly for some reason, came out of a couple of incursions by the Terran Empire in the so-called mirror universe last year. As best I understand it it’s an attempt to detect and observe alternate realities close enough to us that the Celestial Temple, what everyone else calls the Bajoran wormhole, can connect to them. My eyes pretty much glazed over after that. All I know is, they want my ship, specifically, for political reasons as previously noted, and they’re making modifications to the deflector dish to do it. Apparently the existing sensor arrays weren’t powerful enough or something. Yeah, on a _Galaxy_-class starship. That’s Starfleet Science for you: a nav deflector is for generating weird particles, not for pushing crap out of your way when you’re at warp.  
  
Captain Kurland elbows me. “Kanril, we’re done.”  
  
“What? Oh. Sorry, must’ve dozed off.” I stand and head to the door. Maybe I can catch the tail end of the springball match at Quark’s.  
  


* * *

  
I got lucky, managed to get to the bar in time to see Tomis Lee, a cute redhead from my home province of Kendra, body-check Ahanu Terel clean out of the ring. Part of the bar erupts in cheers and I join in. I grab barman Hadron’s shirt sleeve and tell him, “Hathon hammer.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Hathon hammer!” I shout at him.  
  
“Okay!”  
  
I turn back to the game on the screen hung from the second floor railing over the dabo table, which has been shut down for the duration. Ahanu, who’s a quarter Cardassian and looks it, is rubbing his shoulder and looks pissed at Tomis.  
  
Somebody touches my shoulder. “Is this seat taken?”  
  
I turn. It’s Gaarra. “Really? You use that line on me, again?”  
  
“It worked the first time, didn’t it?”  
  
I laugh and point a finger at him. “Don’t think that just because I’m not saying ‘no’ that you get lucky tonight. I’m still your captain.”  
  
“Look, Eleya? Right now I just want to watch the game and get good and plastered so I don’t have to think about what they’re doing to my deflector dish or what the Prophets are going to think about us poking around in the Temple.”  
  
I snort. “Don’t remind me. Hell, I heard Marconi went all the way up to SecDef about it. HEY! That’s a foul! _Y’trel bo tava tu san yc’fel, Dakhur’etil va’yaputal!_”  
  
“You wanna come over here and say that?” somebody from the Ahanu cheering section hollers.  
  
“No fighting! No fighting!” Hadron yells, panicking.  
  
“Relax, Hadron, just an honest insult match between folk. I would but I’m busy drinking over here!” I yell back at the tough guy. I hear somebody in that direction burst out laughing and Gaarra sniggers next to me.  
  
“Is this seat taken?”  
  
This time it’s that Cardassian woman, Atani Dukat. “That seems to be a popular line around here. Go ahead. He’s got some kanar.”  
  
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve never liked it much. Bartender, Samarian sunset please.”  
  
I sneak a closer look at her as she sits down to my right. Graying black hair tied back with a dark red ribbon, hooked nose, scale ridge around the eyes isn’t too prominent. The eyes are the right color for that monster but everything else is way off. “I take after my mother, if that’s what you’re wondering, Captain,” she says without looking at me.  
  
“Didn’t mean to stare.”  
  
“It’s all right. Not every day you meet someone who’s related to an infamous war criminal.”  
  
“I didn’t—”  
  
She sighs and rests her head in her left hand, looking at me askance. “You didn’t have to. I know that look. Captain Kanril, I’m sure you won’t believe me but I really did mean what I said during the briefing.”  
  
“Look, Professor,” Gaarra says, “I get what you’re trying to do, but you’re focused on the political aspects of this and missing the religious side.”  
  
“No, I’m not, actually.” She sits up and turns to face us as Hadron comes back with our drinks. “You’re worried about the wormhole aliens, the Prophets. I don’t agree with your beliefs but I have the utmost respect for them. I actually argued against Schrödinger’s Butterfly to the Ministry for months but I was ignored.” She takes a sip of her drink. “I finally volunteered to run the project when it became clear it was going to happen whether I liked it or not, so best to do it myself so I know it gets done right. I imagine that’s sort of why you two are staying on.”  
  
“Partly,” I admit.  
  
“See? We can agree that it’s a bad idea, at least.” The Cardassian raises her glass. “Truce?”  
  
“Yeah, all right. Truce.” The three of us clink glasses and drink.  
  
She turns to look at the springball match. “So who’s winning?” she asks, changing the subject.  
  
“Ahanu’s up one because the referee’s going blind,” Gaarra answers, “but Tomis has time to close it up. Yep, there he goes, wow!” The bar erupts in cheers again.  
  
Then the buzzer sounds. Tie game, meaning sudden death. Ahanu serves, Tomis returns, Ahanu rams him and sends it high, Tomis jumps and swats it down, Ahanu rushes forward but his return is out of the ring and the match is over! The cheering is deafening and I grab Gaarra’s head and kiss him.  
  


* * *

  
“Everything ready?” I ask Gaarra. It’s 1032 hours and he’s supervising the last of the installation.  
  
“One more connection, the stress test, and then we get to the scanning,” he answers. “Hey, be careful with that!” he yells at one of the Bajorans from the Center for Science who dropped something that looked expensive.  
  
“Sorry, Lieutenant.”  
  
“_Commander_,” one of Gaarra’s petty officers corrects him.  
  
“Commander, sorry. Look, no damage. No harm, no foul, right?”  
  
“Get it stowed, Mr. Ameno.” Gaarra turns back to me with an exasperated look on his face. “Civilians.”  
  
“Don’t I know it,” I say with a chuckle. “Bellevue, you ready?”  
  
“Aye, Captain,” the petty officer responds. “Stress test coming out green across the board. We’re good to go.”  
  
“Okay. Be careful, Commander.”  
  
“Hey.” He gives me a grin, sticking out his bearded chin. “It’s me.”  
  
I head for the turbolift and the bridge while Gaarra stays behind to monitor the deflector in person. I plop down in The Chair. “Ensign Esplin, we’re ready to roll. Request clearance for departure.”  
  
“Aye, ma’am,” the Saurian confirms. “DS9 Flight Control, this is USS _Bajor_, requesting clearance to launch.”  
  
“_Kurland here. You’re cleared to launch, _Bajor_._”  
  
“Lieutenant Park, you may begin undocking.”  
  
“Aye, Captain. Docking tube disengaged,” the conn officer reports. “Umbilicals disengaged. Docking clamps retracted. We are detached. Firing starboard thrusters.” The ship slides sideways ten meters. “Firing aft thrusters.” The ship begins to slowly accelerate. “We are clear of the station.”  
  
“Let’s hope the rest of the day goes this smoothly. Move us to the coordinates. Master Chief, is there anything coming through the wormhole?”  
  
“Not for another three days,” Master Chief Wiggin answers. “Our listening posts on the far side all read negative for ship traffic.”  
  
“Professor Dukat, your team ready?”  
  
“We’re ready,” the Cardassian woman confirms from one of the secondary consoles. “By the way, Captain Kanril, can I compliment you on your science officer? Commander Riyannis really knows her astrophysics. I had a good time talking _n_-dimensional subspace mechanics with her earlier.”  
  
“Ma’am, I have no idea what you just said but I’ll accept the compliment.”  
  
“Captain,” Park says, “we’re in position.”  
  
“All stop. Thrusters to station-keeping. Professor, you have sensor control.”  
  
“I have sensor control,” she confirms. “Um, no, I don’t.”  
  
“Master Chief?”  
  
“Hang on. There, try it now.”  
  
“Thank you.” She presses her intercom key. “Schrödinger’s team, this is Professor Dukat. Let’s do this by the book. I’m going to start with a low power scan and slowly ramp it up. Let’s give it a three-second pulse, default settings. Mark.” There’s a faint hum through the floor as the deflector powers up. “Okay, got a good return on that one. Hm, interesting. I’m picking up a station in the same position as our Deep Space 9, but it’s a Federation configuration. Okay, let’s go again. 2.8 gigahertz, amplitude 12, two seconds. Mark.” Hum. “That’s a … Dominion alloy signature, big enough to be a Jem’Hadar battle squadron transiting the wormhole. That may be an alternate timeline where the alliance lost the war.”  
  
“Any chance they picked up the pulse?” Wiggin asks warily. He’s getting at Rule #1 of active sensors: if you can see them, they can see you.  
  
“There’s always a chance but it’s likely they wouldn’t know what to do with it if they did. At least in our timeline, we know the Founders place the same restrictions on temporal research as the rest of us.”  
  
“How many more scans left in the program?” I ask.  
  
“Six, Captain. Today’s mainly for proof of concept, just to confirm that the theory works and maybe get us some hints on how to control which timeline we’re looking at. Test three, 2.9 gigahertz, amplitude 13, four seconds. Mark.”  
  
And all Hell breaks loose. Sirens start shrieking and a faint jolt is conducted through the floor. “Status!” I bark.  
  
“EPS conduit failure in Deflector Control!” an ops noncom answers. “Picking up a power surge! Controls nonresponsive!”  
  
“Medical and damage control teams to Deflector Control!” Tess orders into her intercom. “What in the—”  
  
On the viewscreen my worst fears are realized as a coruscating beam of golden light erupts from beneath the saucer, lancing straight out at the Celestial Temple. The wormhole erupts, blue swirl now tinged with gold. I hear Biri yell something about the wormhole’s event horizon expanding but all I can do is sit there. “Prophets, what have we done?”  
  


* * *

  
There’s an instant of blinding light and the bridge is empty but for me. “Hello?” I stand and look around. The viewscreen is blank and snowed over with static.  
  
“Hello,” a warm voice comes from behind me.  
  
I turn. It’s a human in an old ‘70s-era uniform, dark skin, goatee, shaved bald. “_Ni’dal_,” I breathe. “Emissary.”  
  
“The answer to your question is, nothing that wasn’t intended. The Prophets play the long game, always have. You didn’t do any damage to the wormhole that it won’t recover from easily.” He looks me up and down. “A Bajoran in a Starfleet command uniform, with captain’s insignia. I didn’t know if I’d ever see the day.”  
  
“I’m not the first, Emissary.” It’s the truth. There’s been at least thirty other Bajoran COs in Starfleet by now. One of them, Kel Nola, class of ‘87, even died commanding a _Galaxy_-class.  
  
“Call me Ben. No, Captain Kanril, you’re not the first, but you’re important to the Prophets. You, more than any of the others, are important to them. I guess they would say, ‘You are of Bajor,’ and it’s true in more ways than one.”  
  
“Okay, so I’m important. What now?”  
  
“Well, now you’re going to fulfill Emer Dareloth’s Second Prophecy. I believe it reads, ‘The sky turns to water. The daughter of the valley travels in the sky. Enemies become allies to stem the coming tide.’”  
  
Oh, lovely. “I’ve never put much stock in the prophecies, Emis—Captain. Even when they _do_ come true, they never come true the way anyone predicts. Hell, you yourself ran into that with Trakor’s Third, or so I read. Kind of makes them hard to use as a guide to anything.”  
  
“You may not put much stock in the prophecies but the prophecies put stock in _you_.” Sisko turns and waves a hand at the viewscreen, which shifts to show the springball match I was watching earlier. “The Prophets play the long game, as I said, but they also have to allow for free will or the game breaks down. They’re also not the only player in the springball match: this universe of ours is littered with entities of similar power.”  
  
“Are you talking about Q?”  
  
“Q is one example. The Organians are another.”  
  
“Refresh my memory, please?”  
  
“They enforced a peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire in the 2260s that led directly to the signing of the Khitomer Accords in 2293. They haven’t been active in our area of space for a long while but that could always change. But you don’t need to worry about that. You need to worry about your duty to your crew. You mostly have the right idea about the prophecies: they either get fulfilled or they don’t, in the course of sapient beings acting on their own. Don’t try to be a great person. Just be a _good_ person, and let history make its own judgments. I’m close to out of time here—”  
  
“‘Time’? Really?”  
  
“Unavoidable pun, I’m afraid. As I was saying, the only specific guidance I’m allowed to give you is a warning: You have a saboteur aboard.”  
  
“The Cardassians?”  
  
“I’ve said as much as I’m allowed to. The Prophets piggy-backed on his plan, which compared to other attempts to destroy this place was rather pathetic. All he did was temporarily redirect the Idran system side.”  
  
“To where?”  
  
“You’ll figure it out on your own quickly enough. He’s still dangerous to you and your crew, which endangers the prophecy and the Alpha Quadrant. Watch your back, Kanril Eleya.”  
  


**END OF PART ONE**


	11. Reality Is Fluid, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the _Bajor_ trapped in fluidic space and Eleya enmeshed in prophecy, she must face herself.

**Reality Is Fluid, Part II**

  
A flash in my mind and I’m back on my real bridge. “What’s our status?” I shout at Tess.  
  
Biri answers instead, “Response team says an EPS conduit exploded and sent a power surge into the Butterfly modifications, and before anyone still awake could stop it the dish sent a theta-verteron beam into the wormhole! Gravity field strength spiked and pulled us in before we could compensate!”  
  
“Casualties?”  
  
“Six dead, eight wounded! Commander Reshek is—”  
  
Gaarra. I’m out of the chair before she can finish the sentence and running for the turbolift. “Deflector Control!”  
  
“Captain!” Tess yells. “Computer, hold turbolift!”  
  
“What?” Tess walks up to me and grabs the front of my shirt through the doorway. “Let go of me, Tess.”  
  
“No,” she angrily tells me, antennae twitching, storm-gray eyes flashing, “and get your head back in the game, Eleya. I warned you that I wasn’t going to let your feelings for Reshek affect the well-being of this crew. Right now we don’t know what the frak is going on and I need you here, on this bridge, in your chair, getting this sorted out. Otherwise I’m declaring you emotionally compromised and removing you from command in accordance with Starfleet Regulation Six-One-Nine. Do I make myself clear, _Captain_?” She lets go of my shirt.  
  
“Sorry,” I say.  
  
She seems a little mollified by that. “Apologize to me later. Save this ship now.”  
  
I straighten my jacket and follow her back onto the bridge, forcing myself to focus. “Biri, where the hell are we?”  
  
“Still in the wormhole, El! We just passed the halfway point. Structural integrity field holding steady!”  
  
“Sensor readings are going crazy, Captain!” Professor Dukat shouts to me. “I’ve isolated signatures from thirty-four, no, thirty-five alternate timelines just from passive sensors!”  
  
“Which timeline are _we_ headed to?” I yell over the noise as the _Bajor_ screams around us, battling the tidal forces threatening to pull her apart.  
  
“We’re still in our own, near as I can tell!”  
  
“Conn, keep us centered in the normal flight path!”  
  
Park announces, “Aye, ma’am! Should be exiting into the Idran system in five, four, three, two, one, now!”  
  
The _Bajor_ erupts from the wormhole and shudders to a halt. The silence is sudden and deafening, broken only by the familiar, constant hum of the life-support system. “Report!” Tess orders. “Where are we?”  
  
Biri taps at her keys. “Not the Idran system, that’s for damn sure. I don’t even know where to begin; I’m having trouble making sense of these readings. Master Chief, give me a cold restart of the primary sensor array if it’s still working.”  
  
“No need,” Wiggin says in a worried tone. “I know where we are. Optical sensors coming up now.” The viewscreen turns from static to pale green. No stars, poor visibility, and some yellowish mass blurred off the starboard quarter. “We’re in fluidic space, sir.”  
  
“Prophets forgive us,” a Bajoran petty officer to my right mutters fearfully. “Forgive your wayward children’s insult. Forgive their arrogance.”  
  
What she’d give to know what I know. I hit the intercom key on my chair arm. “All hands, all hands, this is the captain. Yellow alert. Lieutenant Korekh, please report to the bridge.” I let go of the key. “Wiggin, can we get back into the wormhole?”  
  
“No, it’s like the aperture was never there in the first place. Just some leftover ripples.”  
  
“All right, getting any readings of Undine activity? Or any good hiding places nearby?”  
  
“No Undine activity that I can pick up. And if I remember the information from Admiral Tuvok’s expedition late last year, that yellow mass eighteen kilometers off the starboard bow is something like a coral reef, the local equivalent of a planetoid.”  
  
“Biri, any thoughts?”  
  
“According to this there’s a fairly large hollow cavern where we can hide the ship.”  
  
“Conn, get us there.”  
  
The turbolift slides open and the two-meter bulk of my security chief steps out. “Captain.”  
  
“My office, Dul’krah. You too, Tess.” The three of us go inside. “Computer, privacy mode four.”  
  
“Eleya, what’s going on?”  
  
“Dul’krah, I want you to investigate the explosion in the deflector control room as an act of sabotage.”  
  
The big Pe’khdar’s slit pupils narrow. “My team as yet has no evidence that the EPS explosion was anything other than an accident.”  
  
“The Emissary of the Prophets disagrees.” Tess stares at me. “I had a vision when we were in the wormhole, Tess. I met the Emissary. He said we didn’t do any permanent damage and that we have a saboteur aboard.”  
  
Dul’krah gives me a hard look. “Permission to speak freely, Captain?”  
  
“Go ahead.”  
  
“It is … strange how much direct action your gods take with your people. Chul’teth and Vo’tak have never appeared to anyone in visions in living memory. No disrespect intended, but I am afraid I cannot accept an unverifiable vision as evidence in an investigation. I also cannot jump to conclusions in an investigation.”  
  
“You do what you have to do, but I reserve the right to tell you ‘I told you so.’ Get to work, Lieutenant.”  
  
“Yes, Captain.” He strides out.  
  
Tess looks at me. “That’s not all Captain Sisko said, is it?”  
  
I shake my head. “No. Apparently we’re part of some plan the Prophets have. You familiar with any of the prophecies?”  
  
“Not really, ma’am.”  
  
“Well, the one in question is Emer’s Second. ‘The sky turns to water. The daughter of the valley travels in the sky. Enemies become allies to stem the coming tide.’”  
  
“Admirably vague,” she comments snidely.  
  
“Yeah, but think about it for a minute. ‘The sky turns to water.’ Fluidic space, anyone?”  
  
“Yes, and you’re from Priyat in the Kendra Valley, I know. But that’s far from the only interpretation.”  
  
“That’s more or less what I said, Tess. Don’t worry, I’m taking this a little skeptically, just maybe not as skeptically as you would.” The intercom chirps and I press the “accept call” key. “Kanril.”  
  
“_Park here. We’re in position and powered down._”  
  
“Thanks for the update. Keep passive scans running continuously, and call down to the commissary to get some food up here. We’re probably going to be stuck in fluidic space for a while until the geek squad figures out how to make us a hole back to realspace without the deflector.” I let go of the key and look to Tess. “Is it okay if I go check on my ops officer now, Number One?”  
  
“I don’t see why not; we’re out of danger for the moment. I have the bridge.”  
  


* * *

  
I head down to sickbay. Corpsman Watkins meets me at the door and snaps to attention. “Captain.”  
  
“At ease, Chief. How is everyone?”  
  
She walks inside and I follow. “Petty Officers Vilhjalmsson and Bellevue and Dr. Afyt from the Science Center have minor plasma burns. Master Chief Boepo, Lieutenant Semak, and Datel Mayal from the Cardie Ministry have worse burns and shrapnel injuries.”  
  
“What about Ga—Commander Reshek?”  
  
Watkins leads me into the observation deck of one of the surgery rooms and gestures at the window. Six red-gowned surgeons are laboring over Gaarra, his body anesthetic-masked and motionless, tubes running into and out of his chest. “Dr. Wirrpanda just started on him. Reshek has third-degree plasma and electrical burns over 45% of his body, enough shrapnel embedded in him to set off a weapons detector, and he’s lost a lot of blood.” An orderly enters the surgical theatre with a Biohazard One-marked package. “That’d be the new lungs from the replicator.”  
  
“Is he going to make it?”  
  
“He’ll make it,” she says in a voice that brooks no argument. “Lieutenant Wirrpanda is the finest trauma surgeon I’ve ever served with. He’s saved people with injuries a lot worse than Reshek’s. And Dr. Onas from the Center swears up and down Reshek saved her life. He tackled her out of the way as that conduit blew and took the whole blast on his back.” She touches my shoulder. “You love him, don’t you?” It’s not a question. I turn my head to look at her and the blonde corpsman shrugs. “Part-Betazoid, remember? But even if I wasn’t, it’s all over your face.”  
  
“It’s … complicated.”  
  
“Love always is. I remember my own husband, Kendrick, nearly got scared off when he found out my mother could tell what he was thinking.”  
  
I laugh at that. “Betazoids must make the scariest in-laws in history.” I sober up. “I’m his direct superior officer. I’m not allowed to be in a relationship with him. He knows that.”  
  
“I know, and you’ve been trying to keep your attraction on the down-low so that neither of you gets reassigned. But do you really want to always be wondering if you could have something?”  
  
I open my mouth without really knowing what I’m going to say but my combadge chirps and saves me the trouble. “Kanril.”  
  
“Captain, this is Korekh. Please come to Deflector Control immediately.”  
  
“Copy that; I’m on my way.”  
  


* * *

  
I arrive in the ruins of the control room. Shrapnel and six colors of blood spatter the starboard walls and there’s a gaping, blackened hole in the wall on the port side of the room. Dul’krah tosses me an evidence bag as I walk in. I catch it in the air and look inside. It’s got some sort of tiny burned and twisted gadget in it. “What’s this?”  
  
“Treachery,” Dul’krah snarls. “Sabotage. What you are holding is the remains of a detonator that was attached to one-point-three grams of nitrilin explosive.”  
  
“That’s not enough nitrilin to cause this kind of damage.”  
  
Lieutenant McMillan, holding a tricorder over one of the spatter patterns, answers, “It is when the bomb is mounted inside the primary power regulator.”  
  
“So, bomb goes off, damages the regulator, EPS conduit overloads and blows, and that causes the deflector to emit a theta-verteron beam?”  
  
Master Chief Systems Engineer Kinlo, an old white-haired Klingon from Bynam’s department, shakes her head. “No, that took the extra step of uploading a virus into the control systems to make the dish absorb and emit the extra power.”  
  
Biri steps inside from the corridor. “Whoever did this was proficient in engineering but needs a refresher course in subspace physics. Theta-verterons are completely the wrong particle to cause any damage to the wormhole.”  
  
“Nitrilin is a Breen compound, Dul’krah,” I point out.  
  
“And they sell it to most of the powers in this region,” he counters. “The detonator is Cardassian.”  
  
“Weak,” somebody says, quietly.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“He said the detonator is Cardassian,” the voice of Professor Dukat says.  
  
I spin and grab her by the shirt and push her back out into the corridor, lifting her clear off the floor and slamming her into the wall. “You. Damned. _Phekk’ta. _ Spoonhead,” I grind out.  
  
“Let go of me!”  
  
“I can’t believe I actually entertained the possibility that you were telling the truth, that you really wanted peace.”  
  
“Captain, unhand the professor, now!” Dul’krah bellows at me. “I have already cleared Dukat’s entire team!”  
  
“Based on what?”  
  
“Based on the computer virus being Bajoran!”  
  
I’m so surprised I just drop Dukat and spin in place. “_What?_”  
  
“As I said earlier, one cannot jump to conclusions in a criminal investigation. Where you see Cardassian treachery, I see a woman who has handpicked her own team and is smart enough to cover her tracks better than this. I consulted with Master Chief Kinlo, the ranking cyberwarfare specialist aboard the _Bajor_, and she confirmed that the computer virus carries none of the common fingerprints of Cardassian computer science. And because I know that our crew, even our considerable Bajoran contingent, would not knowingly endanger this vessel, the only remaining suspects are the representatives of the Center for Science. I have already taken the liberty of confining the uninjured members to quarters and will be interrogating each one in turn.”  
  
“Intruders. Weak,” somebody says again.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Captain, what are you hearing?” Biri asks.  
  
“Somebody said we’re weak. Oh, no.” I slap my combadge. “Kanril to bridge. Anything on sensors?”  
  
“I’m having trouble reading through this coral stuff with just passives,” Wiggin answers.  
  
“Tell Park to warm up the engines and get ready to run. I’ll be there shortly.” I start to leave, but then I stop, reach down and offer the professor a hand up. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I shouldn’t have—”  
  
“I forgive you. Go worry about your ship.”  
  


* * *

  
I get to the bridge and Tess barks, “Captain on deck!”  
  
“Carry on. What’s our status?”  
  
“We’re powered up, ready to move on your say-so,” Park responds.  
  
“Take us out to the cavern entrance. I want to get a clearer look at the area.”  
  
“Conn, aye. Coming about.” The view on the screen slowly wheels to the right.  
  
“Captain,” Wiggin suddenly says, “I’m picking up an anomalous energy signature directly above us!”  
  
“Battle stations! Shields up!” The “sky” turns to fire and the planetoid vanishes around us. “Report!”  
  
“Shields holding, 82 percent,” Tess announces. “Switching viewscreen to tactical plot. Oh, _frak_.”  
  
“Wiggin,” I ask, “just how many Undine ships is that?”  
  
“I count two _Tethys_-class, six _Vila_-class, eighteen _Dromias_-class, over eighty _Nicor_-class, and two sets of _Dactylus_-class planet-busters.” He pauses. “We’re boned,” he adds.  
  
Prophets, I’m sorry. I failed.  
  
Or not. Flaming Death seems to have a scheduling conflict.  
  
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Tess asks to my right. “They’ve got us dead to rights: we’re well within firing range and we’ve got a cinder’s chance in the Northern Wastes of taking them all out.”  
  
“Captain,” Ensign Esplin says from the comms station, “I don’t think they’re the Undine we’re used to.”  
  
“What are you talking about, Ensign?” Biri asks.  
  
“Well, they look different.”  
  
“No, they don’t,” I say.  
  
“Yes, ma’am, they do. The colors are different.”  
  
“No, they’re plain yellow, just like they always are.”  
  
“Ma’am, I don’t know how else to describe it. The striations in the skin of that _Vila_ are _ssaurritetla_ and point forward. They ought to be colored _ssuettanet_ and pointing aft.”  
  
The universal translator’s apparently having problems with those words. “Biri, do you know what she’s saying?”  
  
The Trill nods, slowly smiling. “Reptilian eyes. Captain, Esplin’s a _Saurian_! She’s seeing them partly in ultraviolet! Computer, I want a screenshot of that _Vila_-class under ultraviolet light, side-by-side with the same of one of the _Vila_-class ships encountered in the Jenolan Dyson sphere.”  
  
Chirp. “Processing.”  
  
Biri’s screen flicks to a new image and she throws it up on the main viewscreen. “I’ll see to it you get a commendation for this, Ensign.” The core design of the ship is identical, give or take a few minor variations in tentacle shape (understandable with biotech), but the coloration is very different.  
  
“Esplin,” I ask, “is that true of all of them?”  
  
Esplin nods. Biri suggests, “Captain, we may be dealing with a different tribe or clan, or something to that effect. We know from the Terradome incident that the Undine are at least a little factionalized. We may have an opportunity here.”  
  
“‘Enemies become allies against the coming tide,’” I recall. I stand and straighten the hem of my jacket. “Esplin, open a hailing channel, all frequencies.”  
  
“Channel open.”  
  
“This is Captain Kanril Eleya of the United Federation of Planets. We mean you no harm, but we will defend ourselves if necessary. I would like to speak to whomever is in charge.”  
  
There’s silence for a moment, and then I’m knocked to the floor by a deafening voice in my head. _INTRUDER! WEAK!  
_  
Tess dashes over to me as I roll on the floor, clutching my head against the pain, screaming. The bridge vanishes into black nothingness around me and I’m faced with an Undine, over three meters tall and as ugly as they come. _WHO ARE YOU?_  
  
“Kanril Eleya, Captain, Federation Starfleet, serial number November-Whiskey-2403-4233-2015-4114.”  
  
The Undine’s hand snaps out and grabs me by the neck, lifting me off the ground. Its head, as big as my entire torso, sits in my face. _WEAK,_ its mind-voice bellows as I struggle with the hand.  
  
“We’re stronger … than you think. Kanril Eleya, Captain, Federation Starfleet—AARGH!”  
  
_YOU ARE WEAK. YOU ARE COWARDLY. YOU ATTACK IN THE DARK. YOU KILL HATCHLINGS.  
_  
“What … are you talking about?”  
  
The Undine’s head draws back, the patterns in its eyes shifting. The pressure on my throat loosens. _UNCOMPREHENDING. CONFUSED. WE WILL SHOW YOU.  
_  
Images flash through my mind. An _Intrepid_-class starship, firing at Undine vessels. A Gorn _Tuatara_-class cruiser, bombarding a pool on one of those reefs. Tiny creatures that look like small Undine, fleeing the pool and burning under the guns of a _Negh’Var_-class battlecruiser.  
  
“When did this begin?”  
  
_LONG AGO. WE WERE NOT YET BORN.  
_  
“Could you be more specific?”  
  
_LONG AGO.  
_  
“Try. Here, read my mind. I’m thinking about how my people measure time. Try to work it out. GHAAA!”  
  
_STRONGER THAN ANTICIPATED. STILL WEAK. IT BEGAN THIRTY-ONE OF YOUR ‘YEARS’ AGO. WE DESTROYED ALL. THEY PERSISTED. SO WE KILL.  
_  
“So why didn’t you destroy us?”  
  
_YOU ARRIVED. YOU DID NOT ATTACK. YOU HID. WEAK. AFRAID.  
_  
“Some among my people say admitting fear is a sign of courage.”  
  
_YOU ARE DEFIANT. A STRONG WILL. YOU ARE STILL WEAK.  
_  
“Whatever. Here’s the truth. We did not attack you. We _never_ attacked you. Thirty-one years ago we were barely aware of this realm, of fluidic space.”  
_  
LIES!  
_  
“You can read my mind. You know I’m telling the truth.”  
  
_YOU BELIEVE YOUR LIES TO BE TRUTH?  
_  
“They’re not lies. You’re being misled. And where do you get off accusing _us_ of attacking in the dark? Pot, kettle.”  
  
_WE DID NOT. WE FOUGHT TO PROTECT. WE DEFENDED._ Now images of Undine ships attacking the attackers, blowing them away with gusto, rush through my head.  
  
“You tried to destroy us from the inside.”  
  
_SHOW US.  
_  
I focus on my memories of the Undine playing Ambassador Sokketh. Briefings showing the extent of Undine infiltration in the Federation. The attack on Earth, when Commander E’genn revealed himself and I burned him down.  
  
_WE DID NOT DO THIS. THEY ARE WEAK! COWARDLY! SHAMEFUL! BENEATH CONTEMPT!  
_  
“I suspected as much,” I say, smiling despite his grip on my neck. “You Undine are no more united than we are. I can tell you who is responsible for the attacks on your hatchlings.”  
  
_TELL!_  
  
“I want something in exchange. I want you to get your house in order and deal with your ‘weak, shameful’ kin. And I want something else. I want your help defeating _them_ when the time comes.”  
  
_TELL!_ The Undine’s pressure on my throat increases.  
  
“They call themselves … the Iconians,” I gasp out. “They want us … fighting each other. We are strong, you are strong. But divided and fighting each other, we’re both weak.”  
  
_WEAK! COWARDLY! SHAMEFUL! KILLERS OF HATCHLINGS! WEAK! BENEATH CONTEMPT! THE WEAK WILL PERISH!  
_  
The Undine lets go of me and I fall into the blackness below its feet, and I’m back on the bridge with Doctor Maela standing over me with a tricorder. “She’s waking up. Vital signs returning to normal.”  
  
I sit up and spit blood out of my mouth. “_Phekk_, I bit my tongue.”  
  
Wiggin announces, “In case anyone’s interested, the Undine ships are moving out. They’re leaving.”  
  
“Good, maybe—AARGH!”  
  
_WE WILL COME. WE WILL FIGHT._  
  
I fall back down again. “Tess, permission to pass out again?”  
  


* * *

  
I wake up. Unfamiliar ceiling. It’s a sickbay, but not the one on the _Bajor_. A female Paradan in a Starfleet uniform walks over to me. “Captain, you are awake.”  
  
“Who are you? Where am I?”  
  
“I am Dr. Capadan, chief medical officer of Deep Space 9. You are in the starbase hospital. You have been asleep for two days. Minor neurological damage.”  
  
I turn to my left. Gaarra is in the bed next to mine. He’s got an IV in his arm and bandages underneath his hospital gown. But he’s alive, and he’s awake. “Hey,” he says, smiling at me.  
  
“Hey, yourself.” I reach out and take his hand.  
  
“Ow.”  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“Back’s still a little tender. And … I’m not breathing so good. New lungs.”  
  
Tess, Captain Kurland, and Professor Dukat walk in and we quickly let go of each other’s hands. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Kanril,” Kurland says.  
  
“How did we get back?”  
  
“Bynam’s people got the deflector fixed and opened us a hole back to realspace. We came out in the Idran system and just came home through the wormhole.”  
  
“Did you ever find out who set that bomb?”  
  
“It was Ameno Idras, one of the engineers from the Bajoran Center for Science,” Kurland answers.  
  
“The guy who dropped that phase coupler before we started the tests?” Gaarra asks.  
  
Tess shrugs. “I guess; I wasn’t there. Anyway, Dul’krah pretty much just glared at him for ten seconds or so and he couldn’t confess fast enough. It was beautiful, you could’ve sold tickets. Militia raided his house when we got back and _apparently_ he’s a Pah-Wraith cultist. And it doesn’t hurt that his mother was raped and murdered by a Cardassian _dalin_ during the Occupation.”  
  
“Trying to frame the professor?” I infer.  
  
The Cardassian woman nods sadly. “Does it ever end? This cycle of violence? We kill you, you kill us, and nobody wins.”  
  
“You have no idea how appropriate that remark is,” I say, and look to Kurland. “Captain, any word on Undine activity?”  
  
He gives me a confused look. “All quiet, last I heard. Latest flash from the DJC says the Undine haven’t made any moves at all in the last couple of days. Analysts think they’re trying to regroup for another push.”  
  
“Maybe. Or maybe I managed to do some good when we were in fluidic space.”  
  
“What are you talking about, Captain?” Gaarra asks.  
  
I start laughing. “I yelled at them and they went away.”  
  
“The _Undine_?” Kurland asks. “Captain, I think you just signed yourself up for an appointment with the station counselor.”  
  
“Respectfully, sir,” Tess says, “I think you mean Starfleet Intelligence. I don’t think she’s joking.”  
  
Kurland snorts. “Hell, with my luck, she _is_ telling the truth.” Gaarra laughs at this, then starts coughing.  
  
“All right,” Dr. Capadan says, “I must insist, the captain and Commander Reshek need to rest, and I still have a few tests to run.”  
  
“Always do as the doctor orders,” Dukat remarks. “Come on, I’m buying.” The three of them file out and Capadan fiddles with a few settings on the console on Gaarra’s headboard, then leaves.  
  
I look over at him. Most of his beard is stubble, either burned off in the explosion or shaved when they were working on him. It’ll take weeks to grow back. But he’s smiling. “Captain, I—”  
  
“Gaarra, when I heard you were injured, I nearly got myself removed from command trying to come see you.”  
  
“Well, you’re seeing me now.”  
  
“Yes. Yes, I am.” I take his hand again, running my thumb over the calluses. “And I didn’t care. Tess would’ve had me thrown out of the service, and I didn’t care. I had to _force_ myself to care. And now, I don’t have to care anymore. We’re out of danger, and we’re alone and—and I love you, is what I’m trying to say.”  
  
He shifts in the bed and rolls up on his side. “I know. I love you, too.” He brings my hand up to his mouth and kisses it. “All I can do for now. We’ll worry about Tess after my back heals and I can breathe again.”  
  
“Sounds good to me.”  
  


**THE END**


	12. Frostbite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> USS _Bajor_ is forced to leave an away team led by Tess Phohl and Biri Riyannis on a glacier overnight to answer a distress call. The away team comes under attack, and Tess must endure until rescue.
> 
> **Trigger Warnings:** Torture, including implied rape threats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote "Frostbite" for [Unofficial Literary Challenge #2: "Time After Time"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1162481/unofficial-lc-2-time-after-time).
>
>> "Out in the Cold", submitted by danqueller
>> 
>> "When you decided to join the Landing Party to do a quick survey of ruins on an arctic planet discovered in your patrol route, you didn't think it would turn into an extended stay. The hostile ships that came at your ship forced it to retreat, and the last communication you received indicated they were heading out of the system with the entire enemy force in pursuit. Now, you and those with you must survive in the bitter cold. Write a Captain's Log detailing the time spent on the ice planet and the eventual outcome of your efforts."
> 
> This story puts the focus on Eleya's first officer, Tess Phohl, and science officer, Birail Riyannis.

**Frostbite**

> _Blood on the snow of winter  
Back are the eyes of coal  
Glittery leaves a splinter  
Spinning a flake of gold  
Melt away with my heart  
Blow it into the ash  
Buried deep in the heart of the ballerina star_
> 
> _  
Star don’t lose your shine  
Be sure to light the way  
Your essence is divine  
For these three gifts we bring  
It’s only a small offering of time_
> 
> _  
Spreading out like a blanket  
For our tiny souls to keep  
Sparkling pins and needles  
Piercing a stream so deep_
> 
> _  
Well away in my dream  
Is my heart made of tin?  
Melt it into a drop  
Frozen particles of ice_
> 
> _  
Star don’t lose your shine  
Be sure to light the way  
Your essence is divine  
For these three gifts we bring  
It’s only a small offering of time_
> 
> _  
Ooooooooo~  
Ahhhhhhhh~  
Aaahhhhhhh~  
Aaahhhhhhhooooo~_
> 
> _  
Star don’t lose your shine  
Be sure to light the way  
Your essence is divine  
For these three gifts we bring  
It’s only a small offering of time_  
— [“Blood on the Snow” by Erasure](http://youtu.be/DAMsE-I24NQ)

  
_First Officer’s Log, Stardate 87234.2. The _Bajor_ has been on patrol in the Rolor Nebula north of Deep Space 9 for the last week. Twelve hours ago our long-range sensors detected a previously uncharted Class M world orbiting Alpha Quinque Fratres, a G2V yellow dwarf star, same as Sol or B’hava’el. Per standard protocol we’re now on approach to investigate._  
  
“Coming out of warp in five, four, three, two, one, mark.” Lieutenant Park smoothly eased the _Bajor_ from the reality-breakingly fast speed of warp down to the merely very, very fast speeds of realspace.  
  
“Begin orbital insertion,” Tess Phohl ordered.  
  
“Yes, sir. Establishing standard orbit.”  
  
Behind her the turbolift door slid open. Tess turned, spotted a ginger-haired Bajoran in command white-on-black, and announced, “Captain on deck!”  
  
“As you were,” Captain Kanril said. “Talk to me, Tess.”  
  
Tess gestured at the plot. “Alpha Quinque Fratres II, or Orvis II by Bajoran astronomy.” She reads off a PADD. “So far, nothing really interesting. Point-nine-four gravities, oxy-nitro atmosphere a little rich on the O2, orbital period 330 standard days—”  
  
“Hang on,” her captain interrupted, pointing at the world of white inflating on the forward viewscreen. “That snowball is supposed to be Class M?”  
  
Tess smirked and gestured to Commander Riyannis. “It’s in an ice age, Captain,” the Trill answered.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Yeah. FYI, Bajor looked something like that about five million years ago.”  
  
“Standard orbit achieved, Captain.”  
  
“Thank you, Lieutenant Park. Anything else?”  
  
“Well, no signs of intelligent life,” Biri read off the screen. “Plenty of life under the glaciers and in the oceans, though, some primitive land-based vertebrates in the tropics, and a fair amount of volcanic activity… Huh.”  
  
Tess glanced over at her and saw her brow furrowed in concentration. “What is it?”  
  
“I’m not sure. I’m getting a weird heat signature around 47 north, 104 west. Wiggin, give me another sweep, please, hundred-klick radius.”  
  
“Sir.”  
  
Tess scanned the readouts. “What the frak is that?”  
  
Biri shrugged. “It’s putting out a big EM field, whatever it is. Definitely artificial.”  
  
“Didn’t you just say there’s no signs of intelligent life?” the captain asked sardonically.  
  
“I’ve been wrong before,” Riyannis answered innocently. “Captain, with your permission I’d like to take a team down there and see what we can find out.”  
  
“All right, take Tess with you. Park, take us geosynch over the site.”  
  
“Conn, aye. Engaging impulse drive.”  
  


* * *

  
Tess and Biri materialized on the glacier with half a dozen redshirts, five blueshirts, and a crate of base-camp supplies the ever-practical Andorian _shen_ had insisted on. Biri immediately started shivering despite the insulated coveralls that make up the Starfleet cold weather gear. Tess chuckled. “Really?”  
  
“Tess, I was born in the tropics and I’ve spent half my life on starships or in temperate zones. You’re Andorian, you’re lucky.”  
  
“For your information I grew up near the equator.”  
  
“Yeah, _Andoria’s_ equator.”  
  
“Could be worse, Riyannis. We could be in a jungle full of bugs.”  
  
Biri ignored this, pulled a scarf up over her face, flipped her tricorder open and started scanning, then pointed a little west of north. “Rock face, hundred meters that way.”  
  
The group moved carefully across the glacier, Biri repeatedly slipping on the ice. After the third time Tess told her to adjust her crampons and they made it the rest of the way without further trouble.  
  
A sheer wall of black granite loomed ahead at the edge of the glacier, five stories tall. Tess brushed snow and dirt off the rock face, then stepped back and glanced at the Trill. “You’re sure?”  
  
“That’s what the tricorder says. Definite metallic signature centimeters inside the rock, EM readings behind that.”  
  
“All right, stand back.” Tess drew her Type 2 phaser and adjusted the settings, then stitched the stone with a four-shot burst, blowing a hole through it to reveal bare metal. Bronze-colored, embossed with ideograms that looked vaguely familiar to her. In fact, they were so familiar they felt like they were calling to her heart, and yet she knew she’d never seen these particular symbols before. “What the frak is that?”  
  
Biri made another pass with the tricorder. “Well, I was right about one thing, there’s no _native_ intelligent life. This alloy signature reads as the Preservers.”  
  
“_Shun muh?_” Specialist Ling asked.  
  
“Oh, come off it, Cathy,” Senior Chief Athezra Darrod commented. “You know, ancient humanoid species that seeded—”  
  
The petty officer turned redder than the icy breeze would account for and answered, “Oh, right. Them. Think we’ve got another archive like the one the _Norgh’a’Qun_ found in the Lae’nas system, sir?”  
  
“Possibly,” Biri allowed. “I’ll know more if I can—damn it, tricorder crashed. I ought to sue their asses!”  
  
Tess snorted. “Biri, just because it crashed one time—”  
  
“Not one time!” the Trill complained indignantly. “I swear by the forty hosts of Gaunt, the entire model year is allergic to me!”  
  
Tess was about to answer back but her combadge chirped and saved her the trouble. “_Kanril to away team._”  
  
The Andorian slapped the badge. “Go, Captain.”  
  
“_We’re going to have to break orbit. Picked up a distress signal from a Bajoran transport seven light-years out. True Way._”  
  
“All right, we’ll pack up and join you.”  
  
“Belay that,” Biri said. “El, we’ve got a Preserver installation down here.”  
  
“_Ooookay. Do you want to stay on-planet overnight? It’s going to take us several hours to deal with this._”  
  
“Yes, ma’am, I would. Even with the cold.”  
  
“_All right, you guys can stay down there, then._”  
  
“Captain,” Tess queried, “you sure you can do without—”  
  
“_Tess, I was a gunnery officer before I was a CO. I can handle your job. We’ll be back in twelve hours, tops._”  
  
“Very good, ma’am. Phohl out.”  
  
“_Breaking orbit now. _Bajor_ out._” High above, a barely visible dark speck suddenly stretched into the distance and vanished.  
  
Tess shrugged, fiddled with a setting on her tricorder and panned it around the horizon. _Not good._ “Araaje! Better break out the tent now! We’ll need it!”  
  
Biri and her blueshirts went into a discussion of alloys and energy signatures, all of it way over the azure-skinned career soldier’s head. She adjusted her phaser rifle in its sling across her back and helped Athezra and Crewman Araaje set up the tent against the incoming snowstorm. “Oh, that figures,” she complained. This pole is too short. I don’t get paid enough—oh, it’s just the one for the storm-flap, never mind.”  
  
“Haven’t done this in a while, sir?” Athezra inferred in a dry tone.  
  
“Shut it, Senior Chief.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” the sandy-haired Bajoran noncom obeyed, grinning impudently. Tess shook her head and threw him an anchor peg for his corner.  
  
Soon the tent was up and Tess had the heater lit. She grabbed a bundle of MREs out of the supply box and set them out on the heater’s grill to warm through. They were perfectly edible cold, of course, but they tasted better, for a given value of “better”, at blood temperature. She slapped her combadge again. “Biri, Tess. Dinner’s ready.”  
  
Biri’s voice crackled back, “_I’ll be there in a little while. Cathy and I are going up on top of the ridge._”  
  
“What about the door?”  
  
“_Can’t do much with it without more equipment or some other breakthrough. This one seems to be better-secured than the installation on Lae’nas III. But there’s what looks like an EPS conduit running up the cliff. I might be able to get in that way if I can find the top of it._”  
  
“Take Zasrassi and Glav.” She opened an MRE at random and stuck a spork in the main course, spooning it into her mouth. It was some kind of shredded meat, with a sour sauce on it. She glanced at the label on the package. “North Carolina-Style Barbecue & Coleslaw”.  
  
Then her combadge chirped. “_Matheson here. I picked up an energy discharge over the south ridge. I’m going to go check it out._”  
  
“Be careful, Crewman, it’ll start snowing soon.”  
  
“_Won’t be a minute. Matheson out._”  
  
Tess spooned up some more ‘barbecue’ and decided she’d gotten lucky with the MREs this time.  
  
Then she heard a noise in Matheson’s direction. She stopped and listened, then heard it again. Then she placed it: energy weapon discharge. She hit her badge, dropping her MRE. “Shots fired, shots fired! Converge on Matheson’s position! Matheson, who’s out there?”  
  
“_Breen! Repeat, Breen—ARGH!_”  
  
“Matheson! Report!” Athezra’s voice came through as Tess zipped up her coveralls and bolted out the tent flap into the darkening world of white, with snowflakes already drifting down out of the sky.  
  
“_Rrrg, I’m hit but not bad! Returning fire!_” Now Tess heard the distinctive staccato whine of a Starfleet phaser rifle on full auto as she bolted down the glacier.  
  
There was an answering, lower-pitched roar, a Breen type 3 disruptor, and the phaser went silent. She hit her combadge again. “Matheson!”  
  
The electronic warble of a suited Breen returned, “_Matheson is dead. I am Dalsh Ruul. Your camp is surrounded, Starfleet. You will surrender._”  
  
Tess shot back with a barrage of angry Andorii that included a rather graphic description of where the Breen could stick his surrender demand, not to mention the parentage and probable genetic makeup of his _shreya_ and _thavan_.  
  
She came over the hill and dropped prone, flicked the optics on her rifle over to infrared, and sighted below the glowing radiator of a refrigeration suit. She squeezed the trigger twice and the Breen folded in half and flew backwards. Return fire hissed into the snow and ice around her as she selected another target. Off to her right Senior Chief Athezra and Petty Officer Hank Weaver added their fire. One suited Breen was struck in the head and painted the snow with his brains. Another took three shots to the neck and chest and still he shot back one last time; off to Tess’s left, Specialist th’Shrellikath, firing from one knee, blew apart at the groin.  
  
Then Tess heard a whine behind her and rolled over to see three more Breen appear, weapons leveled, the snowy air still sparking with the aftereffects of the transporter. She swore and threw her rifle aside, holding her hands up. “I surrender! Hold your fire!”  
  


* * *

  
A _vel’sh_ threw Tess onto the floor of the tent. She started to stand but a _h’ren_ rammed the back of her knee with the buttstock of his gun and she went down again. A bulkier-suited Breen, this one a _dalsh_, or “shipmaster”, turned to her. A stream of electronic garble issued from the _h’ren_; after a lag her subcutaneous translator supplied, “This one is the leader.”  
  
“Thank you, Draf,” the _dalsh_ said. “Wait outside.” The _h’ren_ nodded once and stepped back out, zipping the tent behind him. “I am Dalsh Ruul. Identify yourself,” the _dalsh_ ordered her in clear, unaccented Federation Standard. He could’ve passed for an Academy friend from Ohio.  
  
Tess forced herself upright and answered, “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”  
  
The big Breen demanded to know what Tess knew of the Preserver door. Again, Tess merely replied, “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”  
  
The Breen _dalsh_ growled in frustration and tried, “How many other Starfleet soldiers are on this planet?”  
  
“Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”  
  
“Answer me!”  
  
“Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”  
  
The Breen backhanded her across the face. “Talk, damn you!”  
  
She spat a small amount of blood onto the Breen’s boot and again repeated, “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”  
  
The Breen’s suit speaker let out a blast of electronic noise that her translator gave up on and bellowed for his compatriots to “bring in the Bajoran.” H’ren Draf entered again, this time shoving Athezra ahead of him, and threw him to the ground. The _dalsh_ grabbed him by the back of his collar, pulled him straight up, and pressed a pistol to the back of his head. “Talk, or I’ll kill him.”  
  
“Don’t tell him anything, sir,” Athezra told her. The _h’ren_ punched him in the kidney and he grunted in pain.  
  
“Yes, thank you, Senior Chief, I know how this works,” Tess said dryly, then looked to the _dalsh_. In a conversational tone, she told him, “No, you won’t kill him, because A, it still won’t make me talk, and B, if you do, our captain will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy, and there won’t be a thing you can say or do that will stop her from personally strangling you with your own intestines.”  
  
“So, you _can_ say something besides—”  
  
“Besides ‘Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022’?” She paused, made an exaggerated expression of being deep in thought for about ten seconds, then went, “Nope, nothing comes to mind.”  
  
The Breen’s gun hand shook, then he gave a frustrated roar and shoved Athezra away from him, and stormed out the tent flap with the _h’ren_ and _vel’sh_ hot on his heels. “Frak you and the zabathu you rode in on!” Tess hollered after him, then asked Athezra, “How many of us did they get?” The tent flap opened again and the Breen shoved in several other members of the away team. “Never mind.” She quickly counted uniforms. Crewman Araaje and Security Officer zh’Planathalian, Specialists Moretti and Atti, and Corpsman Neeshiredei. “Did anyone say anything besides name, rank, and serial number?”  
  
“Squat,” Moretti answered.  
  
“I called his mother a whore,” Atti said. “Does that count?”  
  
“Good. Keep it that way.” Tess passed out MREs, then scooped her opened barbecue package off the floor and put it back on the heater.  
  
“How can you think of eating at a time like this?” Araaje whined.  
  
“Because I’m hungry!” Tess told the Bajoran, an eighteen-year-old barely out of boot camp. “And because I don’t know the next time we’ll get the chance.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” zh’Planathalian said in a soothing tone. “If the Breen were going to kill us they would’ve done it already. That means there’s two possibilities. Either the captain comes back and does her _makra la’zhavey_ thing”—Tess snorted at the description—“or…” The _zhen_ trailed off and mouthed, _The others rescue us._  
  
“One other possibility, Petty Officer,” Athezra added after a moment. “They pick us up and leave.”  
  
“Yes, thank you for being such a ray of sunshine, Senior Chief.” She paused and patted the small of her back, then smiled, reassured.  
  


* * *

  
Atop the ridge, a hundred-some-odd meters above the camp, Biri lay prone in the snow, shivering. Almost a centimeter had fallen in the last half-hour. Oh, and now her stomach was grumbling. It _would_ be that the Breen hit the base camp before she’d eaten.  
  
She’d heard Tess’ call for everyone to converge but her group didn’t have time to get down off the ridge before it was all over. Now all she could do was watch.  
  
“We should go in and get them.”  
  
“Zasrassi, there’s thirty of them and four of us,” she told the Caitian assault squad officer.  
  
“Would that stop the captain?”  
  
Biri dropped her tricorder into the snow and looked at the Caitian in annoyance. “No, but she wouldn’t go charging straight in there either. Eleya may be crazy but she’s not an _idiot_. Where the hell did they come from, anyway?”  
  
“I’m reading a _Plesh Brek_-class frigate in a two-hour orbit,” Ling replied, pointing her tricorder at the sky.  
  
“Okay, so he’s left a skeleton crew up there.” The Trill checked the weather again. “Damn it.” The snowstorm was now threatening to turn to full-on blizzard conditions, exactly why they’d brought the tent. The Breen were far better off in these conditions than anybody but Tess and Talasethra zh’Planathalian, both of whom they’d caught.  
  
Biri decided they’d have to wait out the storm. _Okay, think, Riyannis. Survival 101. Cold weather.  
  
… Okay, drawing a blank. Damn the cold._  
  
“If I may, sir?” Petty Officer Glav said after a moment.  
  
“You got any ideas? I’d love to hear them.”  
  
“Help me excavate the hollow around back of this outcrop. It’ll shield us from their infrared, it’ll give us shelter, and the digging will warm you up, Commander.”  
  
“I take it you’ve done this before?”  
  
“I’m from Temuzad State,” the jet-irised Betazoid answered. “I grew up in this. Half the reason I joined Starfleet was to get _out_ of the snow.” He grinned ruefully.  
  
The work was numbing, both in hand and mind. And somewhere deep inside the irrevocably fused consciousness that was Birail Riyannis, Birail Izer felt Riyannis twitching slightly in the pouch below her breastbone. Even the symbiont was shivering.  
  
That _couldn’t_ be good.  
  
Glav seemed to notice, his eyes widening in worry as he looked over at his superior. “Chalice,” he muttered, putting a hand to her brow. “You’re freezing.”  
  
“You’re telling me?”  
  
“No, I mean if you don’t keep moving you’re going to develop hypothermia.”  
  
She tried to nod but found her coverall hood had frozen in place. “Let’s keep digging.”  
  
Eventually they worked their way into the hollow, and Biri was stunned to find that the walls were smooth, seamless stone, with a metal grate of some kind at one end. Obviously they’d found the far end of the conduit, or possibly it was an exhaust vent. That took a backseat to warming up, though. “Hope you won’t consider this too forward, sir,” Glav joked as he wrapped his arms around the Trill. Zasrassi and Ling joined in.  
  
“Cop a feel and I’ll break your neck,” Biri murmured into Glav’s shoulder as the group’s collective body heat started to build up.  
  


* * *

  
Pain. Pain was Tess’ entire world. White hot. Ice cold. Every nerve burned.  
  
The pain suddenly stopped and she fell to all fours on the snow-covered ground. An _ak’ched_ grabbed her by the hair and one antenna and pulled her upright. This hurt almost as bad—Andorian antennae were sensitive in more ways than one. Dalsh Ruul swam into focus in front of her. All she could make out clearly was the glowing visor. It was still dark outside, and snowflakes still whipped past her face, but it was slowing. “Not the best scream I’ve ever heard, but I’ll give it a seven.”  
  
Tess hoarsely answered, “Sorry … to disappoint you.”  
  
The _dalsh_ sat down in a chair across from her and rapped a rod the palm of his hand. After a moment, he said, “I think this is very pretty.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The design. It’s functional. Finely crafted to exacting specifications. Klingon _’oy’naQ_ are so _crude_. We acquired the design from them, of course, back in the reign of their Chancellor Mow’ga, but we refined it far in advance of their pathetic efforts. It won’t kill you, but the amount of pain or pleasure you feel is entirely up to me. I find it is particularly effective to give _akhvet_—I believe the humans’ term is ‘humanoids’, such a self-centered word—a powerful arousal, and then immediately before they peak, trigger their pain center as I did to you just now.” He abruptly reached out and jammed the rod into her shoulder and the world went white with pain again. It stopped after what felt like eternity. “My men have cleared off the rest of the stone from the doorway. Tell me what you know of the installation.”  
  
Tess took a deep breath. “Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.” _I hold to that one thought. They can do nothing to me but kill me._  
  
The Breen struck her in the head with the painstick and she fell over. Another eternity of pain, though part of her knew it was only a few seconds before the pain faded once more. The Breen looked at her for a long moment. “You know, this is _your_ fault, Commander,” he finally said.  
  
Tess groaned. “How so?”  
  
“If your Starfleet hadn’t found a countermeasure for our cortical implants, I could have just taken what I needed. I wouldn’t have to do this.”  
  
The _shen_ swallowed to get the metallic taste out of her mouth. “Sorry I’m such an inconvenience.”  
  
“Actually,” the Breen corrected himself, “it’s not completely your fault, it’s also Thot Trel’s for leaving an intact copy where you _cha’tor_ could get your hands on it. Frankly General Ssharki did us a favor when he killed that idiot. But it makes my life, and yours, much harder. This could have been so much easier on us both.” He knelt down and gripped her chin, hard. “Here, work with me. Easy question: What ship are you assigned to?”  
  
“Siritesjha sh’Phohlhi, Commander, Mike-Hotel-2404-2294-3037-9022.”  
  
“Stop saying that!” And the world whited out again.  
  


* * *

  
Biri was awoken by Tess’s screams. The Trill could hear it through the rock, and tried to ignore it. ASO2. Zasrassi wasn’t as willing. “Commander, this is _pierec’eay’khartoh_ if you’ll pardon my Ferasan. They’re killing her!”  
  
“No, just torturing her. She can handle it.”  
  
The Caitian’s jaw dropped as a particularly harsh wail issued from the Andorian. “How can you be so heartless?”  
  
Biri stood up, then stormed over, grabbed Zasrassi by the front of her coveralls and slammed her into the wall. “Don’t you _dare_ call me heartless, you damn furball! It’s taking everything I have not to go right down there and blow that _dalsh_ all the way back to Breen! But I do that and we die, too!” She dropped the Caitian on the ground. “You want to do something? Help me get this grate open.”  
  
“What good is that going to do?” Ling asked.  
  
“It’ll keep us busy, for one. For another, maybe there’s something down there that can help.”  
  
Biri examined the edge of the grate with her tricorder. It took a sharp whack against her thigh before the scanner would give her anything useful, but based on the readings the grate was made of a metal-ceramic hybrid material, similar to the hulls of most modern starships. Hard to boil off, held its strength when superheated, and highly wear-resistant.  
  
But the rock around it? Just ordinary granite. “Guys, go collapse the snow around the entrance. We’re going to need the sound insulation.”  
  
“Commander, it’ll take us just as long to dig out as it took to dig in!” Glav objected.  
  
“If I’m right, it won’t matter. We’re going _down_. Trust me on this.”  
  
Zasrassi and Glav went out to the entrance. “On three,” Zasrassi said. “One, two, three!” They rammed the carbon fiber buttstocks of their rifles into the snow above and jumped backwards as it poured down.  
  
Biri and Cathy aimed flicked their rifles over to semiautomatic and began carving the stone around the grating with continuous beams, starting at one corner and raggedly encircling it. The stone evaporated under the continuous streams, which met at the far corner. Biri ejected the nearly spent power cell and rammed a new one home, then flicked the manual safety and slung the rifle. “All together! Lift!” And the grate came free. “All right, where’s that rope?”  
  
Before any of them could enter the cavity, however, Biri’s combadge chirped and she heard her captain’s rough contralto. “_Away team, do you read?_”  
  
Biri quickly answered, “Spotty to Mama Bear, blue-4, red-7.” She adjusted a setting on her badge.  
  
There was a pause, then, “_Confirm, blue-4, red-7._”  
  
They were now on a coded channel, but Biri wasn’t taking any chances. “Mama Bear, Mama Bear, Suits holding Stalks. Spotty positioned for surprise but outnumbered. Requesting rapid dominance, your timing.”  
  
“_Confirm, one Suit Trident in sight. Will gain high ground and deploy opposite. Initiating ECM. Two minutes out, stand by._”  
  


* * *

  
The pain stopped abruptly and Tess saw the Breen looking skyward, holding down the communication key on his helmet. “_Bor Tok_, this is Dalsh Ruul. Enemies approach. Please respond. I say again, _Bor Tok_, do you read?”  
  
Then, high above them in the lightening sky, visible through a break in the clouds, there was a series of silent flashes. Orange and purple beams and bolts briefly spat back and forth, but mere seconds after the battle had begun there was a single actinic flash, a warp core detonating and putting a new momentary star in the sky that just as quickly was gone.  
  
_High orbit,_ Tess thought. _The highest ground there is._  
  
Then a voice issued from the Breen’s communicator. “_Breen commander, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship _Bajor_. Release your prisoners immediately and surrender._”  
  
“Transporter scrambler, now!” Dalsh Ruul barked.  
  
“Delay her!” somebody yelled back.  
  
Ruul pressed a button on the side of his helmet. “Kanril Eleya. I have heard that name before, in intelligence briefings. Since you have apparently destroyed my ship, you will provide my men and I with a shuttle—”  
  
Eleya sounded almost bored when she interrupted, “_Wrong answer._”  
  
Ruul looked at Tess, who would have sworn the Breen looked annoyed if he hadn’t had a helmet on. “She hung up on me.”  
  
“Dalsh Ruul!” somebody cried from the other side of the campsite. “Transporter signatures!”  
  
_Wait._  
  
“I told you to scramble it!”  
  
_Wait._  
  
“Too late!” Then Tess heard the roar of a phaser assault minigun on full auto. There was an electronic squawk from the Breen’s communicator as the guy on the other end was hit in the head; more phaser bolts streaked overhead and spattered the snow with molten rock from the cliff face.  
  
_Wait._  
  
Then the ground rumbled and snow fell from high atop the cliff. A gap appeared in the calligraphy-rich metal-ceramic face of the Preserver doorway. Two _h’rens_ whirled to face it and more phaser fire erupted, stitching them from neck to groin. Biri leaned out of the doorway and a searing orange beam erupted from her rifle; the _vel’sh_ in the party took it in the shoulder, spun about, and went down.  
  
_Wait._  
  
Dalsh Ruul began to turn, reaching for his sidearm as he dropped to one knee—  
  
_Now._ And Tess moved. The 7.5-centimeter stiletto she always carried at the small of her back appeared in her hand and she buried it to the hilt between the Breen’s spine and his right shoulder blade. Crimson blood spurted onto her gloved right hand and the coppery scent filled her nostrils as she drew Ruul’s pistol and sighted on an _ak’ched_, barely hearing the _dalsh_’s roar of pain. The disruptor bucked in her hand as she fired and her target’s head exploded in a shower of sparks, bone, brains, and blood.  
  


* * *

  
From the doorway Biri saw Tess fire as the others searched for more targets. She spotted three more Breen soldiers running from the oncoming assault unit. “This is Starfleet!” she heard the captain shout on her battle armor’s loudspeaker from the other side of the tent. “Drop your weapons!”  
  
Tess fired again and one of the Breen went down; the other two started to turn. Biri pulled her tricorder and punched one of her macro keys, and for once it didn’t crash on her. An orange glow bloomed out of midair between the two _h’rens_ and they flew apart, their suits suddenly engulfed in flames. As they rolled in the snow, frantically trying to extinguish the fire, the captain, wearing full MACO armor in a white, gray, and blue camo pattern, came around the left side of the tent and fired at something off to Biri’s right. A blast of electronic noise and suddenly it was silent.  
  
“Clear!” she heard Lieutenant McMillan shout from the far side of the tent.  
  
“Clear!” Eleya hollered.  
  
“Clear!” Biri joined in.  
  
“Clear!” Dul’krah’s deep voice came from somewhere to the left.  
  
The tent flap unzipped. “Clear,” Senior Chief Athezra announced, shoving another _ak’ched_ out of the tent in front of him. The Breen went to his knees and clapped his hands to the back of his helmet.  
  
Eleya flicked the safety onto her rifle. “Kanril to _Bajor_, we are code four, all clear.”  
  
Tess collapsed and Biri ran over to her. The Andorian was shaking. “Tess, talk to me.”  
  
“I’m okay, just the… aftereffects of the painstick. Just… just give me a second.” Biri shouldered her rifle and helped her up, and Eleya jogged over to grab her other arm.  
  
“McMillan!” the captain bellowed. “How many of these _ye’phekk makteru kosst amojan_ are still alive?”  
  
“I got three over here, Captain!” McMillan answered, and came around the tent with a duo of Bajoran E-2s, shoving a trio of disarmed Breen ahead of her.  
  
“This one’s had it,” Glav reported, “but the two Riyannis set on fire are still with us.”  
  
“The _dalsh_ yet breathes as well, Captain,” the towering bulk of Dul’krah, Clan Korekh answered. The horned Pe’khdar stepped closer, one taloned hand holding a crescent-shaped neural disruptor on the now-shipless Breen CO. He reached down and unsnapped the seal on the helmet, lifting it off.  
  
“Huh,” was all Eleya said as a heart-shaped face with a shock of close-cropped silver-blonde hair came into view.  
  
“She’s human!” McMillan exclaimed.  
  
The woman named Ruul spat blood onto the snow. “I am Breen,” she insisted in a pained soprano.  
  
Eleya shifted Tess further onto Biri, then grabbed the front of the woman’s suit; the human Breen yelped as the knife still stuck in her back shifted. “I frankly don’t give a flying _phekk_ what you call yourself. You hurt my crew. That means I hurt _you_.” She threw Ruul back into the snow to another yelp and radioed, “_Bajor_, we need medical and security teams down here right away.”  
  
Zasrassi tugged on Biri’s coveralls. “Yes?”  
  
“What the _sivt_ was that you used on those two h’rens?”  
  
“Exothermic induction field,” Biri answered. “It’s a fancy way of saying my tricorder has a flamethrower.”  
  
“Why didn’t you use that to warm us all up earlier?” Glav queried, suspiciously.  
  
“‘Cause it would’ve lit us up like a Christmas tree on their infrared.”  
  
“What’s a Christmas tree?” Dul’krah asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to do something a little crazy with the Breen. We never see the inside of one of those helmets in the shows, but the novelverse (specifically _Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game_) came up with them being a confederation of a dozen or so species. The real purpose of the suits is to head racism off at the pass, i.e. “we are all Breen”: instead of celebrating their differences as the Federation does (or purports to do), the Breen try to erase them.
> 
> This reminded me of the Tau Empire in _Warhammer 40,000_, also an alliance of species, and of how they’ll convert human planets to the Greater Good. The humans from those planets are called “_gue’vesa_” in Tau, literally “human helpers”.
> 
> So maybe Ruul is a human defector, or maybe she’s from a far-flung colony world that the Breen took over, or which joined voluntarily. In any case, now she is not human, she is Breen.
> 
> Chuck Sonnenburg also came up with a theory I like, that the Breen also comprise the Valakians after _Enterprise_ refused to help them. This is partly why the Breen hold such a grudge against the Federation.


	13. To Absent Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between missions, the crew of USS _Bajor_ takes some time to remember the people they've lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this story for [Literary Challenge #68: "STO Halloween"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1166791/literary-challenge-68-sto-halloween-entries-thread). Instead of going with a straight trick-or-treating or costume party story, I decided to treat it as a worldbuilding exercise given my mostly alien, Bajoran-led crew. Takeshi6 and I co-designed a Bajoran version of the Latin American Día de los Muertos, which we called the Day of Remembrance. After cowriting a story co-starring Eleya set in the _War of the Masters_ shared universe he was writing for at the time, I took the worldbuilding and applied it to T'Var's death in combat early in my mirror universe-involved novella _The Wrong Reflection_ (not yet posted here).

**To Absent Friends**

> _Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone_   
_Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you_   
_I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song_   
_I just can't remember who to send it to_
> 
> _I've seen fire and I've seen rain_   
_I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end_   
_I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend_   
_But I always thought that I'd see you again_
> 
> _Won't you look down upon me Jesus_   
_You gotta help me make a stand_   
_You just got to see me through another day_   
_My body's achin' and my time is at hand_   
_And I won't make it any other way_
> 
> _Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain_   
_I've seen sunny days that I thought they would never end_   
_I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend_   
_But I always thought that I'd see you again_
> 
> _Been walkin' my mind to an easy time_   
_My back turned towards the sun_   
_Lord knows when the cold wind blows, it'll turn your head around_   
_Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come_   
_Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground_
> 
> _Whoa, I've seen fire and I've seen rain_   
_I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end_   
_I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend_   
_But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now_   
_Thought I'd see you one more time again_   
_There's just a few things comin' my way this time around, now_   
_Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you_   
_Fire and rain, now_   
[— “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwugjyeSKx4)

  
_4 Kadera, Seventh Era 957, Year of Distant Travails (6 April 2410 Earth Standard)_  
  
Nestled under the saucer rim of a _Galaxy_-class starship is Compartment 13 Forward, the public observation lounge. Mostly, it’s the enlisted crew’s rec room. Holotables for various games, an uninterrupted view of space, replicators, ready turbolift access for emergencies, the works.  
  
But on the aft wall of the lounge there’s a dire reminder of how quick this could all be taken away. Forty-five stainless steel Starfleet chevrons dot the bulkhead, each one with a name engraved. It’s the USS _Bajor_’s memorial wall, keeping silent vigil over fallen crew members. Above it, the ship’s seal, with a stylized Orb of the Prophets over the Celestial Temple, and a motto on a ribbon underneath that the crew picked out after launch and I never bothered to look up: _“Morituri Nolumus Mori”_.  
  
The memorial’s busy today. It’s the Fourth of Kadera, the Day of Remembrance, and most of the 152 Bajorans on my crew and many of the non-Bajorans are here to pay their respects. We’re at cruising speed, headed for our next patrol point, so there’s not much else to do today, and there’s a lot of names to remember.  
  
These days it feels like we lose somebody every time we go out.  
  
Hardcopy pictures dot the wall next to most of the chevrons. Duranja lamps bracket the display, and foods from all over the galaxy lie at the foot of the wall. Some of the names on the wall, I know. Too many, I don’t, and that hurts. But there’s one here I know far too well, and since her own memorial wall died with her, and she was part my crew and one of my friends for two years, I put her here myself two months ago.  
  


Lieutenant Commander T’Var  
Operations Officer, USS _Bajor_ NCC-97238  
Commanding Officer, USS _Olokun_ NCC-93794  
2374-2410

I’m holding a bowl of sliced Rillian teaberry melon and roasted dirka nuts. It was her favorite: she loved to mix sweet and savory. I reach past Senior Chief Athezra, who’s placing a photo next to a marker for a Crewman Teaghan Matheson, and stroke T’Var’s chevron. “Hey, there, old friend.” I put down the bowl and tuck a picture behind the edge of her marker. It’s of me, T’Var, Tess, and Biri, all of us in bathing suits. I’m in a simple black one-piece (I’m not as self-conscious about my scars as I was at first, but there’s no point inflicting them on anyone else), Biri’s got a bikini and a flowered sarong, and I remember how many heads that navy blue two-piece that Tess was wearing turned, what with her curves.

Beside me, Gaarra, ever-dependable Gaarra, squeezes my shoulder, as much of a PDA as we’re willing to share in public. He’s lost seven of his people since he came aboard, four of them in the Schrödinger’s Butterfly incident alone. I lean out of the way so he can tuck a white and red pelta blossom behind the chevron for somebody named DO1. Chai Ezanad. “How’s the beard?” I ask him. He’s still growing it out after Warragul had to shave it.

“Itches. It’ll pass.” He looks at the beach photo. “When was that?”

“About a year ago when I had the _George Hammond_, during the Klingon War. We got a little shore leave during a round of repairs and went to Zalaar Beach on Deneb IV.”

“T’Var didn’t swim?”

I glance at the photo again and see what he’s talking about: She’s wearing a Starfleet Academy t-shirt and tracksuit pants. “No, just modest. She didn’t see the, uh, ‘logic’ in flaunting it when she wasn’t actually in the water. She could swim like a fish, though.” We step back from the display and the space is quickly taken by an ensign from forward gunnery. I pass a slice of melon to Gaarra and he trades me a hasperat. I bite into it and my mouth burns pleasantly from the spices. We just sit there chewing for a moment, then I recall, “She loved the water. They don’t have full-on oceans like that on Vulcan. A couple big inland seas, that’s it.”

A memory flashes through my mind, the four of us sitting on the beach one evening that week, shooting the breeze. _“What, never?” Biri asks._

_“No,” T’Var confirms._

_“‘Not ever,’ never?”_

_“I have never seen the need.”_

_I’m confused, and not just with how did we get onto this subject in the first place. “I thought Vulcans typically had marriages arranged in their teens.”_

_“My parents thought it more logical to allow me to seek my own mate. And before you ask, my _pon farr_ has never been so intense as to require more than meditation to control.”_

_Tess waves a dismissive hand. “Give me a break. I know for a fact you pointy-ears have sex outside of _pon farr_.”_

_“That’s it!” Biri exclaims._

_“What’s what?” I ask._

_“That’ll be our present to you this week, T’Var. We are gonna get you laid.”_

_I look at the Trill incredulously, then I hear Tess trying to hold in a enormous guffaw and failing miserably and all three of us collapse. I even catch sight of a twinkle in T’Var’s eye in between gales of laughter._

“No, I have no idea how we got on the subject,” I insist as Gaarra and I sit in one corner of the lounge. Tess and Biri are with us, now, too.

Tess guesses, “Some combination of booze and the natural tendency of soldiers to turn roughly anything sexual if you leave them alone long enough.” Biri starts sniggering.

He stares at me, then shakes his head. “Did it actually work?”

“No, at that point we ordered another round of drinks and Biri p-passed out!” I answer, sputtering with laughter at the memory.

“T’Var had to fraggin’ carry me back to our cabin!” the Trill adds, now positively howling. Tess falls out of her chair and I lean into Gaarra’s shoulder and slide off onto the arm of the chair, shaking with laughter.

As the merriment subsides, I glance up at the wall, which now looks more like a scrapbook than a memorial. Tess says, “I heard through the grapevine they’re renaming one of the new _Avenger_-class cruisers the _Olokun_-A.” My eyes widen and she nods and explains, “The hull formerly known as the USS _Ho Chi Minh City_, NCC-97510, is launching out of the Okana Shipyard next month. They’ll probably want us at the ceremony.”

“Of course they will,” I say, shaking my head. “_Phekk_. You know, even T’Var hated when we had to wear our dress uniforms. Remember when Captain Lahau got promoted? She spent half an hour trying to get that stupid necktie right.”

Gaarra gives a derisive snort as I scoop up a handful of dirka nuts and stuff them in my mouth. “Who the hell came up with that one?”

I shrug. “Earther thing from centuries ago. Some moron in Procurement decided to go retro that year. _So_ glad they got rid of that in the Odyssey unis.”

“So, who’s getting the _Olokun_-A?” Biri asks.

“Urellh Gursultur, half-Romulan fellow from Syrma IV,” Tess answers. “He was XO when I was on the _Khitomer_. Bit of a jerk but he grows on you.”

I hear a couple of twangs from across the lounge and look up to see several people clustered around the stage in the far corner. Warragul’s twisting the knobs on his guitar and giving the strings experimental picks, Dul’krah has his vodchakh out, and—I get up and walk over there with the others hot on my heels. “Doc? Care to explain the piano?”

“Fairly simple, ma’am,” Corpsman Watkins says. “You press one of these keys and—”

“Ha ha,” Tess says in a dry tone as I fight valiantly to keep a straight face. I admit it, she got me. “She meant how did you get it on board and where have you been keeping it.”

“The transporter, and one of the undeveloped rooms on deck 8, sir,” the blonde part-Betazoid answers.

I look at Warragul. “How good is she?”

“Good enough,” Watkins returns, “though not as good as my mother, Captain. She plays for the Medara Philharmonic. I don’t practice nearly enough to be a professional, but I can play and sing.”

I absorb this and turn to my CMO. “What did you have in mind?”

“A few old Earth tunes, quiet stuff. Uh, sir,” he asks Dul’krah, who outranks him by one grade, “my pick’s gone walkabout.”

“On the piano, where you put it,” the Pe’khdar says without looking up, adjusting the spring tuner on his instrument. The dark-skinned man grimaces and scoops up the triangle of plastic without a word.

“Are you ready, Chief?” he asks Watkins. She sits at the baby grand and nods, and Dul’krah raises the vodchakh to his chin. Warragul looks at me. “I introduced T’Var to Sarah McLachlan our third day aboard. Anaala and th’Shrellikath liked her too. We’ve been practicing this one ever since Dul’krah started working on converting it to that overgrown fiddle of his two weeks ago. Thought you’d appreciate this. Computer, dim the lights and give us a spotlight. And a one, and a two…”

Watkins starts into a slow buildup on her keyboard, with Warragul and Dul’krah joining her on the strings a bar or two in. The chief begins to softly croon, “_Remember the good times that we had? I let them slip away from us when things got bad. How clearly I first saw you smilin' in the sun. Wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one._”

Warragul hits the harmony in tenor during the refrain. “_I will remember you; Will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by. Weep not for the memories._”

Now it’s the man by himself, singing and strumming his guitar. “_I'm so tired but I can't sleep, Standin' on the edge of something much too deep. It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word. We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard._”

I don’t know when Gaarra and I started slow-dancing but I feel safe in his arms, against his chest. Like the first night we met. Feels like hours later when he says, “Uh, Captain, song’s over.”

“What? Oh, right.” I let go of him and step back, brushing a lock of hair out of my face and nervously clearing my throat. Hopefully nobody noticed. No, they’re all applauding Watkins and—

“Oh, for Uzaveh’s sake, Captain, just kiss him already!” I spin and gape at Tess.

“Yeah, we all knew you two were a thing weeks ago,” Warragul adds.

I smile, turn my head and give Gaarra a peck on the lips, then turn back to Tess as he clasps his hands below my breasts and hugs me to him. “I guess our secret’s out,” he comments into my ear.

“It was not a secret, Commander Reshek,” Dul’krah says. “The only question I had was when your first children would be born.” There’s an oddly musical clunk from Warragul dropping his guitar. I feel my cheeks burning and Dul’krah has the good sense to start looking embarrassed. “My apologies. Clearly I have run afoul of, I believe the term Lieutenant Commander Bo’tok at the Academy used was ‘culture clash’.”

“_Phekk’tem_ understatement,” somebody female in the crowd mutters in Perikian.

“Watch it,” I warn over my shoulder. While I’m looking I see Nalak Lang and several of the crew from food service come in with two cases of Romulan ale—legal now, and you can thank the alliance with the Republic for that—and several trays of hasperat, as well as a big bowl of Kendra-style kava pudding I’d requested. “Mister Lang, send some bottles and glasses around, please.”

“Yes, ma’am, I was already doing that,” the old white-haired Cardassian says.

I wait until everyone in the crowd, almost a quarter of my crew, has a glass in hand before raising mine. “To absent friends. Rest with the Prophets.”


	14. Tinker, Golfer, Doctor, Trill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the USS _Bajor_ prepares to head for the Delta Quadrant to confront the Vaadwaur, science officer Commander Birail Riyannis takes the opportunity of a layover to conduct her _zhian'tara_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Tinker, Golfer, Doctor, Trill" is my take on the [zhian'tara](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Zhian%27tara) with Birail Riyannis. I wrote this for [ULC 5: "Back from the Dead?"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1172583/unofficial-literary-challenge-5-back-from-the-dead) as a lead-in to an arc of stories loosely following the _Delta Rising_ expansion.
> 
> I've written extensively about Trills in my background material. They're a fascinating pair of species and I've done almost as much worldbuilding on them as I have on the Bajorans.
> 
> This story also involves elements of something I've alluded to in previous stories. I write a considerably more militarized Starfleet than we saw in TNG, which is in large part the aftereffects of the latter third of the 24th century from the Borg on down. As a consequence, there's arisen a bit of a rivalry within Starfleet that boils down to Starfleet Science versus the defense functions. There's very little active exploration going on because too much fleet resources are needed fighting fires across the galaxy.

**Tinker, Golfer, Doctor, Trill**

  
Father. Musician. Sister. Pro golfer. Enlisted man. Wife. Scientist. Commissioned officer. Doctor. Riyannis had been many, many things in a lifetime spanning three centuries and five hosts.  
  
Birail Izer could remember many of them. Not all. Being a joined Trill meant you had the prior hosts’ memories in the same way a normal humanoid had their own. Sometimes it was clear as day, sometimes you couldn’t remember at all, sometimes it came back hazy.  
  
But Riyannis remembered everything. Riyannis _always_ remembered everything.  
  
Of course, functionally there _was_ no Riyannis or Birail Izer. They were one person, Birail Riyannis. But that didn’t stop the occasional weird situation where she felt déjà vu for things that had happened before her grandparents were born. Compared to working out those intricacies in your daily life, computing a Dho-Nha geometry curve in real time was comparatively straightforward. Figures didn’t have feelings attached to them, apart from the frustration with a particularly difficult _n_-dimensional mechanics variation Biri was working on when the USS _Bajor_ pulled into Deep Space 9 for a week-long layover between patrols. It wasn’t for work, fortunately: she’d finished all the heavy stuff from the excavation on Orvis II earlier in the day, and the captain had handed the site off to a team from the Federation Science Council—and went on the extranet looking for a recent paper to peer-review to kill time until her shift was over.  
  
Sudden inspiration struck and she scribbled out an affine transformation onto her PADD, then noticed a mistake, swore, erased half a page of work, and redid the numbers. _Got it that time. Ha ha, you idiots. Rule number one, always remember to double-check your unit conversions. Now, let’s see what we can do with this bastardization of the Ostrowski-Hadamard gap theorem…_  
  
She nearly jumped out of her skin when the ship jolted and the captain’s voice came through the intercom speakers. Eleya’s rough contralto voice said, “Attention all hands. This is the captain speaking. We’ve just docked at Deep Space 9 and will be opening the airlock to allow shore leave debarkation in five minutes. Senior staff, please remain aboard for a briefing in ten minutes.”  
  
Biri shook off the jitters, guessing from the rough docking that someone other than Lieutenant Park was manning conn, and dropped the PADD on her desk.  
  


* * *

  
“What’s up, El?” Biri asked as she sat down in the wardroom aft of the bridge.  
  
“We’re getting reassed. Again,” Eleya replied.  
  
“You mean they’re letting us out of exile?” Biri asked hopefully. Orvis II notwithstanding, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot left unexplored this far into civilized space.  
  
“Not really,” Tess answered, sitting across the table from the Trill. “Just changing it. Instead of being stuck at DS9 they’re sending us to the Delta Quadrant as part of a battle group to reinforce Vice Admiral Reynolds. They’re putting us with Tuvok and _Voyager_.”  
  
“Seems the Vaadwaur are proving tougher nuts to crack than Command expected,” Gaarra added from Eleya’s right. “Reynolds requested several heavy capitals and support units, at least six attack wings’ worth, and with the Terrans’ operation on this side out of commission there’s no pressing need for us in Beta Ursae any more.”  
  
“Who else is going?” Tess asked as Warragul started rapidly scribbling something on his PADD.  
  
Eleya tapped something on her desk console and the wall screen flicked to an order of battle. “Two other _Galaxy_-class starships, Diego O’Shannon’s _Coridan_ and the _Abe Lincoln_ under Vagret Ldone—”  
  
“They got it fixed?” Tess interrupted. “Thought that Lethean fellow Brokosh tore it a new one at Utopia Planitia.”  
  
“Wasn’t any serious structural damage, apparently; just the fighter bay needed redoing. There’s also one _Odyssey_-class and one _Jupiter_-class, the _Picard_ and the _San Jose_, and about a hundred other ships for escort and discretionary. Uh, let’s see, what else?” she asked, peering at her screen. “We’ve got about nine days layover while DS9 refits our multipurpose decks into troop quarters and materiel storage, then we’re supposed to transwarp to Andoria to meet the rest of the fleet and pick up the 103rd Expeditionary Force.”  
  
Gaarra whistled. “Okay, gotta get Logistics and Food Service ready to handle ten thousand jarheads. Fun times,” he added sarcastically.  
  
“And tanks,” Biri added. “Don’t forget the tanks. Well, I guess that changes _my_ schedule.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“Well, I had my _zhian’tara_ scheduled for the layover after this one but it doesn’t sound like we’ll be back in the Alpha Quadrant for a while.”  
  
“I’m sorry, your what?” Eleya asked.  
  
“It’s a rite joined Trills like me perform once a host. We cause the personalities of past hosts to manifest so we can talk to them.”  
  
“‘Manifest’ how?” Warragul queried, looking up from his PADD.  
  
“We get a Guardian—that’s an unjoined Trill telepath, cares for the symbiotes in their natural state—to transfer the residual personality left in the little guy”—she tapped the pouch under her breastbone—“to a temporary host. I had Joran Abrel scheduled to meet us in a month and a half, but that’s easily a two-week trip by commercial transport. El, I was _talking_,” she said as the Bajoran started furiously writing on her PADD.  
  
“Yeah, I was checking something. They opened the transwarp conduit at Trill to the general public last week.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  


* * *

  
Joran Abrel was older than Biri had expected, easily a hundred years old if he was a day. Completely bald, wrinkles like nobody’s business, but the eyes. Those beady dark eyes pierced through her.  
  
“We will begin the Rite of Emergence shortly,” he said in a kindly tone. “Doctor Wirrpanda, you will be hosting Doctor Chiga Rakalyan, the first host of Riyannis.”  
  
“How many times have you done this?” the human asked warily. “And have you done it on non-Trill?”  
  
Abrel smiled. “I honestly stopped counting at least fifty years ago. But I conducted the _zhian’tara_ for Jadzia Dax as well as her successor Ezri Dax. The only hiccup was when I put Curzon in Odo.”  
  
“Why? What happened?” Eleya asked.  
  
“Curzon’s … soul, for lack of a better term in Federation Standard, fused with Odo until he agreed to be removed.”  
  
“No chance of that happening here, right?” Warragul checked.  
  
“Not unless you’re really a changeling and haven’t told anyone,” Biri said, deadpan.  
  
“No! How’d you know?” The doctor grinned and the lovebirds cracked up, with Eleya leaning on the slightly taller Gaarra.  
  
“Anyway, they added a note to the manual not to use them in the _zhian’tara_ after that.”  
  
“There’s a manual?” Tess commented.  
  
“I hate to interrupt,” Abrel murmured, “but could we—”  
  
“Sorry,” Biri apologized, then cleared her throat. “Yes, let’s go.” The other members of the group filed out of the room, leaving only human, joined Trill, and Guardian.  
  
The process took only a few seconds but Biri felt a sudden intangible _absence_. It wasn’t like not being able to remember, it was as if the memory had never been there in the first place. Biri remembered remembering but it was like looking at somebody else’s holoimage.  
  
“Whoa,” Warragul said, his South Australian accent suddenly vanishing. “This is so weird.”  
  
“What is?”  
  
“Being in a man’s body, Biri. Pirka, Borryn, and Devon all used women for me.” He grabbed his collar and looked down the shirt, then whistled. “Some muscles on this guy. Must work out. Hey,” s/he asked suddenly, “did they find a cure for Adaxas Syndrome yet?”  
  
“You know, I do kinda remember a short attention span,” Biri commented.  
  
“Do you also remember hyper-focusing when you’re working on a problem?”  
  
Biri paused. “Now that you mention it…”  
  


* * *

  
“No, definitely need an eight-iron for that shot,” Gaarra told her as they played a round on Holodeck Two. The captain’s boyfriend was currently hosting Borryn Forek, host number two.  
  
“You’re the pro.” Biri shrugged and traded in the five-iron, stepped up to the ball, steadied herself, and swung, and with a metallic _whop_ forty-two grams of (holographic) plastic rose into the sky.  
  
“Beautiful! Perfect!” Borryn congratulated her.  
  
“So how did you get into golf, anyway?”  
  
“Well, it wasn’t that long after first contact with the Federation, maybe twenty years. My parents were in the FST diplomatic delegation to Earth, and I got bored one day after school, started exploring Paris, and signed up for golf lessons pretty much for kicks. Not needing money with the humans has its advantages.”  
  
Biri remembered the rest as she picked up her bag. Borryn had quickly proven a natural, won his first British Open by the time he was 18, then pulled a grand slam, all four Earth majors, at the tender age of 23. “You were practically the whole reason golf became big on Trill, weren’t you?”  
  
“I don’t like to boast,” he demurred as they got into the cart and trundled downhill to the green. “But yeah, I had a hand in that.”  
  
“That’s an understatement—you used the winnings from that year as seed money for the Shera Meadows course in Leran Manev, for crying out loud. _And_ you were the first winner of the Trill Open six years running.”  
  
“Honestly there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of competition at the time; the first Open was pretty much just me and that Vulcan, T’Sora. Hard one to beat—she could send a ball way further than I could.”  
  
“Heavyworlder,” Biri explained. “Vulcan’s got half-again the gravity. So how come Pirka and I play but Devon didn’t?”  
  
“Never thought about it. I suggested he try it when he did his _zhian’tara_, but I guess being career Starfleet kept him too busy.”  
  
“I manage it.”  
  
“They didn’t have holodecks then.”  
  
“Point.”  
  


* * *

  
“By the forty hosts of Gaunt, what is _with_ this uniform?” the fire-haired Bajoran complained. “And what the hell rate am I supposed to be?”  
  
“Uh, the body you’re in is an officer. My captain, actually.”  
  
“Great,” Devon Yarvo, a.k.a. Master Chief Transporter Officer Devon Riyannis, complained. “Figures you’d stick me in a zero.”  
  
“Hey, watch it. She’s not your average CO—she came up from the ranks.”  
  
Devon looked impressed. “Hey, Guardian, get me a mirror,” he ordered in a commanding tone. Abrel wordlessly passed him a hand mirror and he perused Eleya’s features critically. “Younger than I expected. Nasty scar. A mustang, you said?”  
  
“She was an NCO in the Bajoran Militia.”  
  
“Good girl. Always said you can’t command a man until you’ve walked a klick in his shoes. Fraggin’ high-and-mighty Academy meat, come out thinkin’ they know every damn thing.” He paused and glanced at Biri, who raised an eyebrow at him. “No offense.”  
  
“None taken. You’re half the reason I joined Starfleet anyway, despite Dad.” Jonek Izer’s first wife, Biri’s mother Pallas, had served, too, a gunner’s mate killed at Second Chin’toka aboard the USS _Shanghai_. Jonek never forgave the service for it.  
  
“What was the other half?”  
  
“My field docent was Rear Admiral Dax.”  
  
“Little Jadzia made admiral?” he asked hopefully.  
  
“No, _Ezri_ Dax. Jadzia was KIA in ‘74.”  
  
He looked crestfallen. “Always the good ones who die young,” he grumbled. “Knew her when she was a shiny new ensign, right before I retired. Smart girl, paid attention when her noncoms told her something.” He gave Biri a look in the eye with a severe expression on his face. “Hope you do, sir.”  
  
“Absolutely, Master Chief.”  
  
“Good. Always gotta keep a finger on the pulse of the rank-and-file.” He stepped over to a wall screen and started tapping some commands. “Gaunt’s hosts,” he said in awe.  
  
“What?”  
  
“A _Galaxy_-class starship. I’ve never been aboard one before. Beautiful ship, beautiful. Your captain’s very proud of her.”  
  
“I know. I love this ship, too. Wanted to serve on one ever since I first looked at joining Starfleet.”  
  
“So did I, but they’d only just launched the first series when I hit mandatory retirement. And then I had that stroke two years later and that was the end of it.” He reached out and tapped Biri’s pouch. “Had a good run with the little guy but things happen.”  
  
“Your grandson’s heading into the Delta Quadrant with us,” Biri told him. “He was Class of ‘86, now first officer on the _Wolf 359_.”  
  
Devon smiled. “Couldn’t be prouder.”  
  


* * *

  
Unlike the other three hosts, all of whom had died before Birail Izer was born, Biri had actually met Pirka Riyannis briefly over a decade ago, right before the transference, but hadn’t had a chance to talk with her on account of she was out cold at the time after being fatally injured in an aircar accident. Symbiosis Commission grads were put on a waiting list for the next symbiote and it had happened to be Riyannis.  
  
That had been hard, watching them remove the little guy from the pouch of the motionless, clinically dead Pirka. And then the shock, a wave of new memories unfolding in Biri’s mind like a blooming flower. The experience always changed the host: no matter how much the Symbiosis Commission prepared you to separate your own memories from the symbiote’s, you always became a little different. Biri had picked up golf and joined Starfleet, where she’d never considered either before.  
  
Pirka Saroyn sat in a chair in Tess’s body, improvising on a bass fife Biri had replicated for her. She’d been fairly well-known on the Trill planetary internet as a folk musician, though she was only ever a part-timer who did it for fun. Or at least she was trying to improvise and apparently failing. “I don’t get it. Doesn’t sound right no matter what I do.”  
  
“Well, you _are_ in an Andorian.”  
  
Pirka frowned. “The antennae?”  
  
“Probably. They’ve got senses we Trill don’t—they can pick up EM fields and a much wider range of audio frequencies.”  
  
“Well, this isn’t working,” she grumbled, laying down the fife. “And this body doesn’t have the muscle memory anyway. But I hate the silence. Always felt it needed to be filled with something, why I started playing.”  
  
Biri’s face twisted. “Computer, play Lieutenant Korekh’s album for me.”  
  
The sounds of low-pitched strings started coming from the intercom speakers, a jaunty, upbeat tune that Pirka started tapping a foot to almost immediately, closing her eyes in pleasure as Tess’ antennae twitched. “Who is that and what is he playing? Doesn’t sound like a yishar or a cello.”  
  
“That’s our security chief, Dul’krah, Clan Korekh. He’s playing one of his species’ native stringed instruments.”  
  
“I _like_ it. Wait, I know this one. It’s ‘Tirk’s Lover’ by Korin Sera. How’d he—”  
  
“It’s his hobby. He converts other species’ songs to play on his vodchakh.”  
  
Pirka’s eyes widened and she whistled, impressed. “You work with some interesting people, Biri.”  
  
They sat there listening for a while and the song ended and a new one began. This one Biri had heard the big Pe’khdar play in person, Tor Jolan’s Fourth, a classical Bajoran tune. Presently Biri asked if she regretted anything. “About what?” Pirka replied, standing and giving her fife a few experimental toots, then swearing. “Nope, still not working.”  
  
“About having to move on like that, no preparation, no nothing.”  
  
“Devon was in the same boat—you don’t see _him_ complaining. Yeah, okay, I wish I’d been able to see my daughters graduate and so forth, but at least I got to actually be around when they were growing up, unlike the Chief. Thirty years in Starfleet and what’d he get for it? Nice retirement party and an empty house on account of two wives taking the kids.”  
  
Biri frowned. “Are you saying I should quit?”  
  
“No! Not if you enjoy what you’re doing, anyway,” the older woman amended. “I’m saying that you’ve chosen a lifestyle and you’ll have to make sacrifices, and and I don’t mean dying alone and forgotten on some rock nobody’s ever heard of. You meet somebody, you and they will have a choice to make. Long-distance relationships are hard. Trust me, I know.”  
  
“Anything else you think I should know?” Biri queried, a little defensively.  
  
“Yeah.” Pirka tossed her the fife and she caught it. “You make a G-sharp by pressing the third button down the tube.”  
  


* * *

  
“DS9 Control,” Ensign Esplin said into her mic, “this is USS _Bajor_, requesting permission to launch.”  
  
“_Confirmed, USS _Bajor_,_” Jim Kurland’s voice answered, “_you are cleared to launch. Good luck in the Delta Quadrant, and may the Prophets go with you._”  
  
“And with you,” Eleya returned. “Lieutenant Park, you may proceed.”  
  
“Conn, aye,” the human confirmed.  
  
As he proceeded with detaching the ship from DS9, Biri sat quietly in her seat reading over an archaeology paper. She felt someone put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey.”  
  
“Hey, El.”  
  
“You’re awful quiet today. Lot to think about?”  
  
“Mm-hm.”  
  
“But you’re okay?”  
  
Biri clicked a pair of icons and sent the paper to her quarters’ console. “Yeah. And hey, maybe we’ll get to do some actual science in the DQ in spite of ourselves.” Eleya shifted slightly. “No, it’s all right. I knew what I was signing up for.”  
  
“You know you can talk to me, right? Anytime, anywhere.”  
  
“I know. If you need me I’ll be in my quarters.”  
  
As the _Bajor_ drove for the transwarp conduit Biri left the bridge and went down seven decks. “Computer, privacy mode.” She started to try and work on the paper, but couldn’t focus and stopped. She reached for a cabinet over the console, took Pirka’s fife, and put it to her lips.


	15. Two Sides of a Coin, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their way to the Delta Quadrant, USS _Bajor_ is ordered to detour to assist a science team led by Eleya's ex-fiance, Commander Jerrod Dalton.
> 
> Based on the Foundry mission "The Interwarp Experiment" by AstroRobLA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote part one of _Two Sides of a Coin_ for [ULC 9: "In Memory of Spock"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1181487/ulc-9-in-memory-of-spock), but didn't complete the second part until over a year later, for [ULC 30: "Redux, Reuse, Re-Gift?"](https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1225625/unofficial-literary-challenge-30-redux-reuse-re-gift)
> 
> _TSoaC_ is an adaptation of the Foundry mission "The Interwarp Experiment" by AstroRobLA, which I thought was so well-done I made it part of Eleya's official canon. I took a couple minor liberties with the backstory (here it was an Orion attack, not a Borg attack, that prompted Dalton to join Starfleet, because that doesn't fit STO's chronology), but most of the mission is adapted directly.
> 
>   * Crew of USS _Bajor_:
>     * Captain Kanril Eleya, CO: Jennifer Hale
>     * Commander Tesjha Phohl, XO: Claudia Black
>     * Lieutenant Commander Reshek Gaarra, operations officer: Adam Baldwin
>     * Commander Birail Riyannis, science officer: Ursula Abbott
>     * Lieutenant Dul'krah, Clan Korekh, chief of security: Idris Elba
>     * Lieutenant (JG) Dr. Warragul Wirrpanda, chief medical officer: Wayne Blair
>     * Lieutenant (JG) Kaitlyn E. McMillan: Karen Gillan
>     * Senior Chief Assault Squad Officer Athezra Darrod: Matt Czuchry
>     * Assault Squad Officer, Second Class Zasrassi: Sandra Dewi
>   * Crew of USS _Destiny_:
>     * Captain Traes Merkell, CO: Sharon Gless
>     * Commander Jerrod Dalton, science officer: David Chokachi

**Two Sides of a Coin  
**

> _There’s some things I should’ve said_   
_I was too afraid_   
_It was just so hard to let you know_   
_And now it’s all too late_
> 
> _What we had was beautiful_   
_I didn’t wanna wreck it all_   
_Every day, I think about the truth_
> 
> _I wish I was_   
_I wish I was_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_I wish I was_   
_I wish I was_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you_
> 
> _Stripped away the walls I built_   
_Like no one ever has_   
_The hardest part is we’ll never know_   
_If we were meant to last_
> 
> _What we had was beautiful_   
_I didn’t wanna wreck it all_   
_Every day, I think about the truth_
> 
> _I wish I was_   
_I wish I was_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_I wish I was_   
_I wish I was_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you_
> 
> _Brave enough to love you_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_I wish I was_   
_I wish I was_   
_Brave enough to love you_   
_Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you_   
[— “Brave Enough” by Lindsey Stirling, feat. Christina Perri](https://youtu.be/F0F2yComQ1U)

  
I materialize in the transporter room of the USS _Destiny_ and a Bolian in a CO’s white-on-black snaps to attention. I guess it’s because of the gold braid that’s been added to my service uniform recently for the Karagite Order of Heroism; I’m pretty sure she has seniority. “Captain Merkell. Permission to come aboard?”  
  
“Granted, Captain Kanril,” Traes Merkell assents, and I step off the transporter pad into the _Defiant_-class escort’s cramped interior. “I’m honored to finally meet you,” she says, stepping forward to shake my hand.  
  
I gesture to the trio behind me. “My XO, Commander Phohl, my ops officer, Lieutenant Commander Reshek, and my science officer, Commander Riyannis.”  
  
“_Sial’alachua_, Commander,” Captain Merkel says to Tess, brushing a hand across her bald blue temple.  
  
“I appreciate the gesture, sir, but wrong greeting,” Tess answers with a sardonic smile. “Imperial Andorii isn't my first language—I’m from the Adris Islands, not Lor’Vela Oblast.”  
  
“Sorry. I’ve got several Andorians on my crew and I guessed.”  
  
Tess shrugs. “Well, at least you pronounced it right.”  
  
“So what’s this about?” I ask. “The admiral was pretty tight-lipped: all I got was a destination and a code word, EXCALIBUR MINT GATEWAY, and Starfleet Intelligence wouldn’t clear me for the file.”  
  
"Sorry about that; Commander Dalton insisted. This experiment’s really taking a toll. As you can see the _Destiny_’s little more than a science experiment at the moment.”  
  
“Yeah, I had some questions about… Wait,” I stop in mid-sentence. “Dalton? What’s his given name?”  
  
“Well, Jerrod Dalton, of course, Captain. Rumor has it the two of you knew each other at the Academy. I infer that’s why he requested the _Bajor_ specifically.”  
  
I grimace. “Yeah. We knew each other. It’s… complicated.”  
  
Merkell gives me a rueful grin. “Yes, I’ve noticed that things are often ‘complicated’ where Dalton is concerned. Brilliant man, but sometimes brilliance comes at a cost to everyone else.”  
  
I grunt in agreement. “Preaching to the choir, Captain Merkell.”  
  
She laughs. “Maybe we can trade stories later. Meantime though, we’re a little overextended here getting ready for the first field tests.”  
  
“Field tests of _what_, exactly?” Gaarra asks.  
  
“Well, I’m no scientist, but from what I’ve been told this ‘interwarp drive’ thingummy is supposed to be a revolution in faster-than-light travel. It’s a take-off of a standard warp drive, but instead of producing a warp field only slightly larger than the ship by distorting subspace, it supposedly punches the field into what Dalton calls an ‘accessible dimension’.”  
  
“I get it,” Biri says. Off my look, “Well, it’s Shar’s Hypothesis—the field is going to snap back into normal space, but with a much greater radius.”  
  
“How much greater?” I ask cautiously.  
  
“Well, for our first test, Dalton set a goal of a ten-kilometers diameter. He says he’s being conservative.” I raise an eyebrow at this and she gives me a look like she can’t believe what she’s saying. “Yes, he thinks a warp bubble big enough to encompass the entire Fifth Fleet is ‘conservative’. And apparently the upper limits could be in the high hundreds of klicks.”  
  
“He’s right,” Biri says with a look of wonder on her face. “If you incorporate Cochrane’s Eighth Law and Har’chak’s Theorem… Gaunt’s hosts, the implications are staggering—you could just move Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards over to Epsilon Eridani in one trip!” She pauses. “He _really_ built this? It’s not a mock-up or anything?”  
  
“Well, so his team says. All I know is, I had a junior department head go over my head to Starfleet Science and bull right through a couple parsecs of red tape to volunteer me for this.”  
  
Now it’s my turn to be sympathetic. “Yeah, that sounds like Dalton.”  
  
“So, how _do_ you two know each other? You must’ve been pretty close if he wanted you specifically, Kanril.”  
  
“That’s… Can I answer that later after I’ve had a chance to talk to him?”  
  
“Sure.” She points at a door leading aft. “He was in the engine room last I heard. Also, I wonder if you could do me a favor." I gesture for Merkell to continue. “Well, you’ve got a _Galaxy_-class starship with full amenities, right? We’ve pretty much been cooped up in the _Destiny_ for months. If you could loan us some holodeck time—”  
  
“Say no more,” Gaarra agrees, and hits his combadge. “Reshek to Ops, have the holodeck schedules cleared for Merkell’s crew.”  
  
"Many thanks."  
  
We head aft and down the corridor, dodging a rather frazzled Andorian lieutenant who’s trying to fix an EPS leak. I hear her grumble something to the effect of “Not again!” as I go past, headed for the aft section of the ship and Main Engineering.  
  
Back in the Academy I did a stint on the USS _Fearless_, a first-run _Defiant_-class the Academy uses as a trainer. I know what a _Defiant_-class engine room is supposed to look like: _anything else_. The warp core is overgrown with extra cylinders and consoles and supply tubing, and steam is hissing from some of the assemblies. The ship’s chief engineer, another Andorian, a _chaan_ by the look of his antennae, is standing by the center console. He snaps to attention at my rank. “As you were. I’m looking for Commander Dalton.”  
  
“Around back, sir.”  
  
“Captain prefers ‘ma’am’,” Gaarra corrects him, but I’m already moving past. I duck under a low-hanging conduit and catch sight of a blond human in work grays, hunched over a console.  
  
He doesn’t seem to have noticed my approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns, and I briefly get a glimpse of his eyes widening before my right cross smashes into his jaw. I feel the pop of a bone giving in my ring finger but the sight of him flying backwards, bouncing off his console, and landing in a heap on the floor is worth it.  
  
“Captain!” Tess cries warningly behind me. Somebody else yells, “Security to Main Engineering!” into a combadge as she and Gaarra grab both my arms and haul me backward.  
  
“It’s all right, Chief Howard!” Dalton says. “I deserved that.”  
  
“_Ye’phekk maktal kosst amojan_ deserves a lot more than that!” I yell in a mix of English and Kendran. “Get off me!” I shake them loose.  
  
“What the _phekk_ was that about?” Gaarra demands.  
  
“The captain and I used to be engaged.” He rubs his jaw. “Whoo, you still pack a punch, _sha fe_.”  
  
“You do _not_ get to call me _sha fe_ after what you pulled,” I snap as he clambers to his feet.  
  
“‘Engaged’?” Biri repeats.  
  
“Years ago, at the Academy, before this _asshole_ up and shipped off to the _phekk’ta_ Gamma Quadrant in the middle of the night!” I force my fist to unclench. “You’ve got a lot of nerve dragging me out here when we’re supposed to be in the Delta Quadrant reinforcing Admiral Reynolds.”  
  
“Look, I’m older now, and a tad bit wiser if I’m lucky. There’s a lot I need to explain, but trust me, this wasn’t a frivolous request.”  
  
“Oh, you want me to _trust_ you?”  
  
“Well, yes,” he says in a slightly sheepish tone. “But I’d rather have that conversation somewhere less public,” he adds, eyeing the CHENG. “Can you meet me in the officers’ mess in about fifteen minutes? You’re going to need to hit sickbay anyway, get your combadge set up as a dosimeter.”  
  
That gets my attention. “This contraption of yours is _radioactive_?”  
  
“No,” Biri says, “but if I remember the theory right the process does involve triolic waves.”  
  
Dalton nods. “The Trill’s right. We don’t have it powered up right now and the core is pretty heavily shielded, but you never know.”  
  
“All right, Dalton, I’ll hear you out,” I grudgingly agree. “But I reserve the right to break your nose.”  
  
Biri laughs. “I think I’ll stick around here for a while, talk shop with the crew.”  
  
Gaarra’s combadge goes off as we head out the door. “_Sir, it’s Bellevue. We’ve got a safety trip in Holodeck Two._”  
  
“They’re trying to mess with the programs _already_?” Gaarra asks in an exasperated tone.  
  
“_Looks like._”  
  
“All right, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Gaarra looks at me with an irritated expression, nose ridges crinkling. I jerk my head in the direction of the transporter and he nods and starts that direction.  
  
Then I feel eyes on the back of my neck. I grab the back of his uniform and pull him back. “Wha—Mmmf!” he manages as I turn him around and kiss him, _hard_, lightly biting his bottom lip as his beard tickles my chin. I hold onto him for about six seconds then let him go. Tess is staring at me in surprise, one antenna twitching. “What was that about?” Gaarra asks, looking a bit shellshocked.  
  
“To piss off Dalton. Go; I’ll see you later.”  
  
Tess laughs at this as we head forward, stepping around the crew in the tight confines of the ship. “So, how long had you known each other?” she asks, still snickering.  
  
“About a year. Admiral Ben-David sent him to pick me up when I got to the Academy, then we met in a nightclub a couple months later, had dinner, and things got serious fast.”  
  
“And you were going to marry him?”  
  
I make a face. “Yeah, but the engagement wasn’t _that_ official yet. We’d done the Rite of Grasses but there’s still half a dozen rituals after that, and we hadn’t set a date or had any of the banns read, either.”  
  
“Heh. You wanted a traditional Bajoran wedding?”  
  
“My parents did. At that time I’d’ve been happy being married by Commander Falwell on our midshipman cruise. That was just before he left.”  
  
We stop in sickbay to get our combadges set up (and me to get my finger fixed). Tess stays outside the officers’ mess and strikes up a conversation with the _Destiny_’s XO, while I steel myself and step inside. Dalton’s changed into his service blacks and waves me over to a table where he’s replicated some hasperat. “Still can’t kick the habit, not since you made it for us that time on spring break.”  
  
“Stuff the small talk, Commander.”  
  
He half-grimaces. “I guess I deserve that one. You probably have a lot of questions.”  
  
“Just the one, really: _Why?_”  
  
“Yeah. ‘Spose that covers it. Why did I leave? Truth is, I left because I didn’t want to. I couldn’t bear to have you out of my life.”  
  
I raise an eyebrow. “Okay, that doesn’t make sense.”  
  
He laughs. “Yeah, let me try that again. You were… like nobody I ever met. You were a partner and an inspiration; it was getting to the point where I couldn’t imagine life without you. But you have to understand, that’s not why I joined Starfleet.”  
  
I look at him for a moment, trying and failing to read his face. “You’re telling me you got scared?”  
  
“Sort of. I was scared that there were things I needed to do that I _wouldn’t_ with you around.” I unwrap one of the hasperats and wait for him to continue. “You remember I told you how my family moved to Aldebaran when I was twelve, how the liner was hit by the Orions? I’d probably be dead or enslaved if a Starfleet frigate squadron hadn’t run off that Syndicate carrier. Three of the four ships were blown away but they saved all our lives.”  
  
“Yeah, you told me that’s why you joined Starfleet. What’s that got to do with—”  
  
“It wasn’t just a motivation for me to join. I felt… _feel_ that I owe the Service my family’s lives. I joined up to give the Federation everything I could, to be the best I could be. I wanted to do my part to keep other families from suffering disasters that could be avoided.” He lets out a breath. “It may sound arrogant but it made me think I might have a destiny to fulfill, something more important than my own happiness. But after I met you I wasn’t thinking about that until I got the offer for that deputy science chief gig on the _Planck_. You realize how rare it is they offer that to a cadet?”  
  
“Yeah, so why didn’t you tell me about it?” I ask around a mouthful of hasperat.  
  
“Because I turned it down. I didn’t want to leave you.”  
  
I nearly choke. “What? What the _phekk_ are you talking about, ‘turned it down’? You left without saying a word!”  
  
“Well, that night I was going to tell you about it, and that I’d said ‘no’. I wanted you to be proud of me. But then when I saw you, I realized I couldn’t have both. We’d both know I’d put you ahead of a unique career opportunity. That’s selfish, not something to admire. At worst I might’ve ended up resenting you for it.  
  
“I barely slept that night, and by morning I’d realized I only had one option, so I went back to Admiral Serrikan and asked if the offer was still open. I decided if I just left without a word, it would hurt and you’d hate me, but hopefully you’d get over me.”  
  
I rest my face in my hand. “Did it ever occur to you to just _ask_? I probably would’ve said yes! Prophets, Dalton, I’m a space warfare officer—they had me slated for Gunnery on the _Betazed_! There’s no job for me on a research post! It was damned arrogant of you.”  
  
“Arrogant? Yeah, probably. Probably selfish, too. But I was afraid that if we talked it out I wouldn’t be able to leave, even if you _did_ say yes. There’s… there’s something almost _elemental_ about you, like… you’re like a force of nature and everyone around you just gets pulled along for the ride.” He shakes his head. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s sexy as hell, but it’s also kinda scary. I dunno, I’m not trying to excuse myself, and I’m not asking for your forgiveness, but maybe it counts as an explanation? And hell, look at you now. Jay-gee to full-bird captain in two years, and _how_ many medals, again? And your ship’s becoming a bit of a legend in its own right. I’m happy for you.”  
  
I accept the compliment without comment. “All right. So why did you bring me out here?” He looks around the room, then pulls something out of his pocket and attaches it to the underside of the table. The sound of the ship rapidly dulls. “An anti-snoop?”  
  
“Can’t risk being overheard. That’s why I needed you. I needed someone I trusted _completely_. There’s been some glitches with the interwarp experiments. Nothing major, yet, but it’s got my hackles up. This technology could change the face of the galaxy if it works, and I think somebody’s tampering with it.”  
  
I raise my eyebrows. “Wow. I’ve gone from discarded lover to trusted confidant in the space of four minutes. My head is _spinning_.”  
  
“Do you really have to be sarcastic? This is serious. You see, nobody really knows where this tech could go. I’ve been telling everyone we’re at least a week away from the first test, but I was stalling so you could get here.”  
  
“And you were stalling because…?”  
  
“Because if enough people think we’ve got days to go, I think I can maybe derail any interference if we suddenly move it up to tomorrow. Also means we’ve got a big reserve of crew on hand that I _know_ haven’t been compromised, and, well, it’s a _Galaxy_-class starship.” He exhales again. “Maybe I’m getting paranoid but there’s too much at stake here. This isn’t just about warp fields and moving ships. If my math is even close to right, for all practical purposes there _is_ no hard mathematical limit to how big a field you can make—someday we could be moving _stars_.”  
  
My mouth drops open. “_Sher hahr kosst,_” I breathe.  
  
“Yeah, so you can see why somebody might want to steal it or shut us down. Then again, if I _am_ being paranoid, I’m glad it got me to finally tell you all this.”  
  
“Well, Dalton, I’m still angry at you. But I’m in.”  
  
He slumps back in his chair, visibly relieved. We just sit there eating hasperat for a while, not talking. Finally he says, “So, you and your ops chief?”  
  
“Mmm? Gaarra?” I nod, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Yeah. Funny, Gaarra and I met in sort of the same way you and I did. Picked him up at Quark’s on DS9, next day I walk into my ready room and he’s reporting for duty.”  
  
He laughs. “He a good guy?”  
  
“Very.”  
  
“I’m glad.”  
  
Then my combadge chirps. “Dammit.” I put down the hasperat and slap the badge. “Kanril, go.”  
  
“Tess here. Hope I’m not interrupting, but Master Chief Wiggin just picked up a blip of a radiation signature out in the asteroid field. Definite triolic wave signature.”  
  
I glance over to Jerrod; he shakes his head. “We haven’t done any tests out there and triolic radiation doesn’t occur naturally.”  
  
“_Phekk._ All right, we’ll go check it out.”  
  


**END OF PART ONE**


	16. Two Sides of a Coin, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanril Eleya goes to investigate the anomalous readings from the interwarp drive test site, only for all hell to break loose.

**Two Sides of a Coin, Part II**

> _Why did I waste my time?_  
_Two steps, I don’t rewind_  
_Feeling I can’t define_  
_I give back to you_
> 
> _Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_
> 
> _I see my demise_  
_From behind your eyes_  
_I can’t pass you by_  
_I put back to you_
> 
> _Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_
> 
> _Between love, between hate_  
_Shake the silence back but it’s too late_  
_And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
_It’s a love hate heartbreak_
> 
> _This could be suicide_  
_A kiss with these red knives_  
_Why am I driving blind?_  
_I give back to you_
> 
> _Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_
> 
> _Try on one for size_  
_I thought boys don’t cry_  
_You’re my perfect lie_  
_I give back to you_
> 
> _Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_
> 
> _Between love, between hate_  
_Shake the silence back but it’s too late_  
_And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
_It’s a love hate heartbreak_
> 
> _Between love between hate_  
_Shake the silence back but it’s too late_  
_And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
_It's a love hate heartbreak_
> 
> _Between love between hate_  
_Shake the silence back but it’s too late_  
_And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
_It’s a love hate heartbreak_
> 
> _Between love between hate_  
_Shake the silence back but it’s too late_  
_And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
_It’s a love hate heartbreak_
> 
> _Give it all away, take it all away_  
_Give it all away, take it all away_  
[— “Love/Hate Heartbreak” by Halestorm](https://youtu.be/x7n0iizglK0)

  
“Captain, something’s seriously wrong,” Wiggin says without preamble as Biri and I make the bridge. “We’ve picked up a series of triolic wave pulses, and they’re getting stronger.”  
  
“Well, Dalton says it’s not his doing. Maybe the Devidians are playing games again, but in any case we can’t afford to take chances. Triangulate the source and patch it to the helm.” I hit my combadge. “All hands, this is the captain. Sound yellow alert.”  
  
“_Destiny_’s hailing us, ma’am!” Esplin announces.  
  
“Onscreen.”  
  
Captain Merkell looks more worried than before, and I can see crewmen running around frantically in the background. “_Things are going nuts over here, Kanril. We thought we had a rad leak but the source is external._”  
  
“I know, Merkell. Patch Main Engineering in.”  
  
Jerrod appears on split-screen. “_El, there is something _really_ wrong here. All the diagnostics are going nuts, giving readings that don’t make sense. I can’t tell if this is a major system failure or…_” He trails off but I know what he’s thinking: they’ve been compromised. “_Get to the source and try and see what’s going on. I’ll work on the safety interlocks down here._”  
  
“You got it. Park, let’s move!”  
  
As the impulse drive engages there’s a bright red flare from the _Destiny_. Wiggin mutters, “What… the… _fuck_?”  
  
“Yes? ‘What the fuck’ bad? ‘What the fuck’ good?”  
  
“You tell me, ma’am. I can’t see Movarish III on sensors anymore, or even its sun!”  
  
“Run that by me again?” Tess says.  
  
Wiggin and Biri frantically hammer at their consoles. “No good,” she hollers. “There are massive subspace shear waves all around us. It’s like we’ve gone to warp, and we’ve taken the whole asteroid field with us!” Then the Trill gasps. “Gaunt’s… forty… hosts. The interwarp drive. It _works_.”  
  
“Well, how the frak do we shut it down?!” Tess snaps.  
  
Dalton’s voice comes through the comm, distorted by static. “_…overrides are shot to hell; can’t control the triolic injection… won’t disengage until you cut off… at the source…_”  
  
“I’ve lost the signal!” Esplin cries.  
  
"He told us enough! Park, full impulse!"  
  
The _Bajor_ barrels into the asteroid field, ducking around whirling boulders ranging from groundcar-size on up to city-busters the size of office parks. Smaller rocks and gravel spark harmlessly off our navigational shields as we close on a planet-killer seventy klicks across at the center of the formation. “So, what are we looking at?” I ask Wiggin. “Besides a big rock, I mean.”  
  
“I’m not sure. Sensors say there’s something going on but I can’t tell what. Wait. This interference… looks artificial somehow.”  
  
Biri says, “I’ve got an idea. If we get close to that thing we can fire a full-spectrum particle pulse to try and dissipate the interference and get a clear scan. It’d take computer timing but—”  
  
“Do it!” I order her. She hammers out a few lines of code and hits the trigger. There’s a thrum of power through the ship’s hull but nothing happens.  
  
Then, as I stare out into the blackness, I see something. A ripple in the dark.  
  
Prophets. “Shields up! Go evasive!”  
  
Tess’s hands race across her board as the dark green prow of a warship bites a hole in reality ahead of us. The bow mount glows a sickly green as Park throws us hard to starboard and a supercharged disruptor lance snaps out and skitters across the port shields. Tess got them up in the nick of time but the lights briefly dim. “Romulans!” Tess barks.  
  
“Battle stations!” I hammer my hand against the key for the general quarters alarm. “Tess, damage report!”  
  
“Port shields at eighty-four percent; returning fire! Master Chief, identify!”  
  
“His IFF’s off but I’ve got a match on optical,” Wiggin calls over the howl of the red alert klaxon as the port phasers return the ambush with interest. “_D’deridex_-class, ChR 20336, IRW _Javelin_. She’s Tal Shiar!”  
  
Registry 20336. Fourth production run, built for the Dominion War. One of the few ships in the known galaxy that can potentially take the _Bajor_ in a head-on fight. “Esplin, send him a canned ‘surrender or die’. Park, continue turn! Tess, aft battery!”  
  
“Ready on aft battery. Rear torpedo loaded.”  
  
“Well, that was rude,” Esplin comments, presumably about the response to our hail.  
  
As the oncoming warbird passes into our rear arc, still firing, Tess slams her hand down on her console and a spread of quantum torpedoes shrieks out of the chase tube. “All power to aft phasers. Locked and firing!” Quadruple beams snap out from the arrays on the stardrive, nacelles, and saucer, smashing into the _Javelin_ head-on. The first torpedo goes wide and the second is swatted by a disruptor mount, but the following trio pound one, two, three, into the forward shields. Tess fires the phasers again and batters them down as the _D’deridex_’s impulse engines flare; it struggles to turn and interpose fresh shields.  
  
“Tess, take a headshot!”  
  
“Firing!” Another lance of nadions snaps out and slips in just under the edge of the shield hole, carving into the warbird’s “head” and blowing a gash through several decks. Debris and bodies belch out of the hole and the ship keeps turning, out of control, and careens into the surface of the asteroid. Its bow, already wreathed in flames, crumples like a drink can hit with a sledgehammer, then the singularity core blows and begins eating everything nearby, starting with what’s left of the wreck. The bridge breaks out in cheers and I nod in grim satisfaction.  
  
“Captain,” Wiggin calls over the noise, “I’ve got a small task force heading in. Read three _T’varo_, one _Mogai_-class.”  
  
“Park, take us after them. Biri, did you get anything?”  
  
“Yeah, in addition to collapsing the cloak on that warbird the particle burst unmasked what looks like a small underground installation on that rock. Probably not going to be a problem anymore, what with that loose drive singularity. Ugh.” She shakes her head. “How’d you know that shot would work?”  
  
“Educated guess. Pointy-ears follow some of the same doctrines we do—you can regain control from the engineering section if you shoot out the bridge, but that’s not meant to be easy ‘cause they’re more worried about sabotage than running into something while they get control back.”  
  
“Kind of a gamble,” Gaarra remarks from the ops console.  
  
“Hey, it worked. And if it hadn’t, we could’ve beaten him the old-fashioned way.”  
  
That’s what I tell him, but I’m still trying to get my heart-rate down. Rommies sure keep you on your toes…  
  
The _Bajor_ barrels after a trio of _T’varo_-class light warbirds. They see us coming, of course—ship this big is hard to hide—and frantically fan out. Tess fires and skewers the port-most one dead center, its shields nearly useless against the full power of the forward phasers. The tiny frigate swiftly crumples into its own drive singularity, which then decomposes and detonates. “I lost number three—he cloaked!” Wiggin calls.  
  
“Hard to starboard, forty degree up!” I order. “Reduce speed one-third!” Park fires the side jets and the ship slews right and pitches relative up.  
  
“Locked! Firing!” A volley of phaser fire snaps out from the dorsal arrays at the dancing ship, but a flash erupts at its position. Singularity jump, I realize as the little warbird reappears on the far side of a tumbling rock bigger than us, spins like a top, and comes at us guns blazing.  
  
Then the missing one slices back into reality and hammers our still-recharging port shield with a volley of plasma torpedoes; the impact of the big red one sets the lights flickering. “Shields at sixty and falling!” Gaarra reports. “Diverting engine power!”  
  
“_Mogai_ heavy warbird, coming at our two o’clock low!” Wiggin adds as the broad-winged ship screams in. “ChR 25327, IRW _Esemar_!”  
  
_Phekk_ this. I jump up and throw an ops petty officer out of my way to get at his console. “Sorry,” I mumble to him as Tess swats one of the frigates with a glancing hit that pulverizes its starboard nacelle, and start keying commands.  
  
There. Tractor beam. I lock onto the other light warbird and seize it in a death grip, redirecting its momentum and sending it for a tumble right up the larger warbird’s nose.  
  
Well, close enough for government work, anyway. The _Esemar_ almost banks away in time and instead of smashing them both to powder the the _T’varo_ takes off half the starboard wing and disintegrates. A spread of quantum torpedoes finishes her, and lifeboats begin to pop from the blazing wreckage.  
  
“Bean ball, take your base,” I comment. Tess turns to me with an eyebrow raised. I shrug and help the petty officer back up. “Esplin, get me _Destiny_, please.”  
  
“One moment, ma’am.” Esplin taps at her console. “Uh-oh.”  
  
“Oh, what _now_?”  
  
“Ma’am, they’ve been boarded, probably by _Esemar_. Captain Merkell’s got the bridge locked down but needs help clearing the rest of the ship.”  
  
“_Phekk_.” Pretty easy to outnumber the crew on a tacscort. I hit the intercom. “All hands, this is the captain. Scramble assault unit!”  
  


* * *

  
“Frag out!” I yell, tossing a grenade around a corner. The blast is thunderous in the confined space and I’m thankful for my helmet dampening the noise. I extend the fiber-optic camera on my wristguard around the corner. It’s spattered with green blood and a cluster of bodies lies unmoving.  
  
“They were trying to break into Captain Merkell’s ready room,” Kate McMillan says from across the hall, where she took cover after the Romulans pinned her down.  
  
“All right, go, I’ll cover you.”  
  
McMillan and Athezra move up as I swing my rifle around the corner and cover it; Crewman Minassian and Security Officer zh’Planathalian head down the hall and lay a frag mine to cover our backs. “It’s locked, ma’am!”  
  
“Merkell, Kanril,” I radio as I take up a position behind them, “I need you to override the lock on your quarters, otherwise I’m going to have to breach. Give me a five-count when you’ve got it.”  
  
“_Stand by. Five, four, three, two, one, mark!_”  
  
The door slides open and Athezra throws in a flashbang. My visor polarizes and blocks the flash. I hear some swearing in Romulan as I storm in. A pointy-ear officer loopily goes for his pistol but can’t bring it to bear before I bullrush him to the ground.  
  
“Captain, look out!” A disruptor blast hits my side; I’m thrown off the male and bang my helmet against the bunk. Athezra’s pulsewave phaser howls and a female flies into the wall with a fist-sized hole through her breastplate, landing in a heap on the floor. She groans once and expires. “You hit, Captain?”  
  
I crane my neck to inspect the damage. “Nah, didn’t penetrate. _Phekk_, how did I not see her?”  
  
“She was behind the desk when we breached. Yours still alive?”  
  
I glance at the insensate male centurion. “Alive, but probably no use to anyone for a while.” I pat him down and find a boot knife, then zip-cuff him to Merkell’s bedframe for later.  
  
“Ma’am,” zh’Planathalian says, gesturing at the screen on the desk. I come over to her. “Looks like they were using Captain Merkell’s terminal, looking at personnel records in Science and Engineering.”  
  
“Interesting,” I murmur, recalling Dalton’s suspicions. “What else?”  
  
The Andorian clicks through two more screens. “Look, it’s the interwarp modifications, these are classified files. They knew exactly which ones to retrieve, but I think we stopped them before they could download the data.”  
  
“_Captain, Tess!_” my radio suddenly crackles. “_There’s another warbird closing in!_”  
  
“Prophets, they must’ve had a whole fleet out there. Tess, I’ve already taken two hits to my armor. Head out and intercept, try and keep them from landing any more boarders.”  
  
“_We’re on our way. Be advised, it will take us out of communications range._”  
  
“Walk with the Prophets, Tess.” I look to the others. “We’ve gotta get down to Main Engineering and I don’t trust the turbolifts.” I radio the bridge again. “Merkell, I’m going to need your access codes and the location of the nearest Jefferies tube.”  
  
A ladder down, I kick open the access grate and emerge next to a Romulan. My rifle’s slung over my back but I pull my bayonet and open a second mouth on his throat before he can do anything, spraying me with bright green arterial blood. Disgusted, I wipe my gauntlets off on his shirt and turn to a ship status display. “Looks like the security force fields are up all over the deck.”  
  
I open a door to head down the corridor to starboard and run right into a fire. “_Phekk!_” Lucky for my armor or else I’d have no eyebrows left.  
  
“Why aren’t the fire suppression systems running?!” Athezra shouts as I backpedal.  
  
“Sensor must be knocked out!” I quickly key the manual controls and foam sprays out of the ceiling and walls. “All right, watch yourselves.”  
  
“God, I hate this stuff,” McMillan grumbles as our boots swish and squish through the foam.  
  
We come to a corner and I raise my wrist-camera, then retract it and turn my head. _One, group,_ I hand-signal. _Two by two. Three, two, one._ I turn the corner and crack off an unaimed burst on the run. The Romulans are ready this time: several disruptor bolts fly past me, one grazing my right pauldron as I duck into a doorway. Zh’Planathalian tries to follow but takes one in the head and crashes sideways missing half her face. _Phekk._  
  
Athezra fires two blasts down the hall from the corner as McMillan hides behind his breach-grade heavy armor, shooting around him. Zasrassi dives across to my position and makes it. I fire again and an officer screeches and goes down.  
  
“Zass, cover fire!” I order. “Thez, on me! Move!”  
  
The Caitian crouches and flicks her rifle to full auto as I charge, hoping the GUNGNIR II hardsuit’s battered breastplate will hold up. Two bolts shatter on my midsection, another hits my groin guard as I make the next doorway. Behind me I hear McMillan yell, “Goddammit!” as Athezra nails two Romulans at once with his gun. One more pokes his head over their barricade and I put a burst into his belly. Zasrassi fires again, aimed this time, and the last one goes down.  
  
“Clear!” I yell. “McMillan, you all right?”  
  
“Sweet mother of holy _fuck_, asswipe hobgoblin shot my goddamn _leg_!”  
  
I turn to check on her. She’s on the floor with a big hole through the kneeguard of her Interceptor armor, but for some reason she doesn’t seem to be in much pain and her vitals read as good on my HUD. Then it hits me. “Wait a minute, Lieutenant, is that your—”  
  
She starts laughing. “Yeah, he shot my goddamn _fake_ leg!” Zasrassi and Athezra and I all start cracking up, blame stress. "Well, heh, I guess I can’t, heh, follow you any further, not until I take it to the shop.”  
  
A blinkenlight in my HUD catches my eye. “_Ahem_, rad levels are increasing anyway, you probably shouldn’t,” I answer. “Zasrassi—”  
  
“I’ll stay with her,” the Caitian agrees.  
  
“You said ‘radiation’, ma’am?” Athrezra asks, checking for a pulse on zh’Planathalian I already know won’t be found.  
  
“Probably triolic. Medkit in my backpack, get the radvax.” I trigger the med dispenser in my suit and wince at the sting.  
  
I start to continue into Main Engineering but a pointy-ear subcommander with a nasty phaser wound on her left flank groans. I spin and level my phaser at her head. “_Ve hwi yhfev, lloi’dhohh hwi arhem._”  
  
“_Urru Areinneye, susse-thrai Bah’jor._” She spits on my breastplate as I kneel down next to her to check for weapons. “_Oi ihhaonn’hrhae’edh hwai rayha._”  
  
Okay, that second one stings a bit. “Athezra, see to her. _Docgae-d’ifv hwi fvah vr’..._”. I pause to think up a translation. “_... vr’aethl’avaihh’etrehhevha?_”  
  
She manages a smirk despite clearly being in a lot of pain. “_Mnean docgaen aeu aei temmnuei haeinha thaihnhas dhenovher Rihan mhastev Temehludet._” She coughs again. The spittle on her hand is tinged with coppery green blood. “_Oi docgaen llillaa mnean aeu payr kroiha hrian._”  
  
“Captain?” Athezra prompts.  
  
“She thinks Dalton’s project is a threat to their national security.” Which if Dalton’s right, it probably is, but I maintain my poker face.  
  
“Nice,” he grumbles. “Don’t suppose she knows how to turn the _phekk’ta_ thing off.”  
  
She starts to laugh at the question but it quickly turns to another coughing fit. Athezra jabs her in the neck with a hypospray, probably an anesthetic. “_Sehhaekhe ssuy venireal hraen._” She chuckles again. “_Nihroikhe arhem aihkh tlhojur, susse-thrai._”  
  
I slap her. The servos in my armor split her lip and work her jaw around. “_Dhroi ehlrh!_” But she just glares sullenly at me and I know I’m wasting my breath. Maybe if I had two months and a hole to dump her in until she started howling at the moons, but she’s too stubborn and too principled to get anything useful here, so I just zip-cuff her hands to her legs. “McMillan, Zass, can you—”  
  
“She won’t go anywhere,” McMillan promises, laying her phaser across her bad knee with the emitter leveled threateningly at the wounded Romulan, who sticks her tongue out at the human.  
  
I turn a corner and I’m there: Main Engineering. Commander Shrel sees me waving and quickly lowers the forcefield. “I’m hoping this means you’ve dealt with those boarding parties!”  
  
“Yes,” I yell back over the noise. “Now how do we shut this _phekk’ta_ thing off?!”  
  
“I’ve been trying to figure that out the whole time but this frakking radiation is destabilizing the crystals! Go help Dalton in the back! I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, been too busy trying to stop a core breach! He got hit but he might know how to SCRAM this thing!”  
  
Jerrod is in a corner out of the way. I reach around for the medpac attached to my waist, eyeing the third-degree disruptor burn on his upper thigh. “Eleya, back so soon?” he asks, coughing. “Can’t stay away from me, can you?” He eyes his machine as I open up the pack. “Isn’t this beautiful?”  
  
“You can flatter yourself later,” I grumble. “You’re not allergic to metorapan, right?” He shakes his head and I grab an ampoule. “What the _phekk_ happened in here, anyway?”  
  
He winces as I jam the hypospray into his neck. “Well, after you went out to investigate the radiation pulses, our readings went off the scale in here. I think the Romulans were focusing a coherent triolic wave beam on us… It must have been intentional. Then something blew out near me and I hit the floor. I’m not sure exactly what happened next but the interwarp drive was already engaged when”—he coughs again—“when I got up.”  
  
“Who activated it? Oh, damn,” I add, reading the rad levels off my HUD. Radvax, where’s the damn radvax…  
  
“I don’t know. It could have been due to an overload induced by the radiation pulse, or maybe someone tripped a switch. Before I could get to a console the Romulans stormed the place. I think Shrel managed to toss up a bunch of forcefields to isolate the rest of them, but one squad still got in here.” He coughs again, but not as hard this time, the metorapan must be having an effect. “Seemed a lot more interested in the warp core than us. They killed Petty Officer Rehnquist”—he indicates a dead redshirt tucked against the back wall—“and I got blasted. I was sure I was dead but I think they were trying to keep the rest of us alive. I heard them talking.”  
  
“Yeah, I had a nice chat with one in the next compartment. They want your little project.”  
  
He nods. “And they’re flying us right into Romulan space to get it.”  
  
Oh, of course. “Starfleet’s gotta have noticed by now, they’ll send a fleet—”  
  
“No, I… I don’t think help is coming,” he says as I start rubbing burn cream into his wound. “It’s possible they can’t detect us at all—OW!”  
  
That last part was me accidentally squeezing his leg in shock. “_What?_ What the _phekk_ are you talking about? This warp field is _twelve hundred klicks across!_”  
  
He laughs ruefully, which quickly morphs into a hacking cough. "I told you I was keeping some things to myself, especially since I started getting suspicious. There is a theoretical consequence of… of expanding a warp bubble through an accessible dimension. I calculated it might—”  
  
I grab his shoulder. “Would you spit it out already?! I don’t have time for all your technobabble!”  
  
“The math suggested that the warp bubble could end up slightly out of phase when it formed. It's possible that would mask its warp signature almost entirely.”  
  
I just sit there with my mouth hanging open, then finally cast my eyes to the ceiling. “Right! Because the Prophets just _couldn’t_ be done _phekk’sha mab sor’ah_! You _phekk’ta_ built a giant, _**invisible** phekk’ta_ warp drive!?”  
  
“I didn’t know for sure, damn it!” he shouts at me, then is reduced to another coughing fit. Finally, he explains, “The math wasn’t exact, El, any number of real-world conditions could’ve factored in. I needed to test it to see what would happen… before I knew. But that means we have to shut it down, and fast, or we could end up on the other side of the quadrant before anyone realizes we’re missing.”  
  
“Oh, right, this thing is also slipstream-fast, because of course it is.” I press my gloved hand to my visor. “All right, how the _phekk_ do we turn it off?”  
  
“I tried… The triolic induction that flooded the chamber seems to have set up some kind of positive feedback loop. I’m not really sure where the energy is coming from, maybe the zero-point field, but right now it’s self-sustaining. It’s almost like they engineered it this way. How could they possibly know…?”  
  
“Dalton!” I tap his forehead. “Focus!”  
  
“Well, maybe… Okay, try this. If you disengage all of the safety interlocks at the main console, maybe we can just blow out the triolic induction module.”  
  
“Won’t go boom, will it?”  
  
“At this point, I’ll take my chances.” He probably has a point. “First, you’ll need to dump every bit of power you can into the thing, next set up a resonant pulse in the regulator console. And then stand back.”  
  
“All right, this is gonna hurt.” I finish bandaging his leg and hoist him into my arms, ignoring his screech of pain, then move to carry him out the door and down to my assault team, ordering Shrel to evacuate the section as I go.  
  
“Carrying me over the threshold?”  
  
“Shut up, I’m not finished with you. You stay alive, you damn fool.”  
  
“Okay… Don’t want to spoil… our reunion… later…”  
  
He goes limp as I hand him off to Athezra, who just looks up at me and says, “Go, Captain.”  
  
I run back in and override the console, telling the safety systems to go _phekk_ themselves. Every spare joule I can find on the ship goes into the triolic induction module: life support, weapons, emergency force fields—BANG! I drop flat just in time as a fireball washes over the console.  
  
Suddenly all is quiet. Commander Shrel peeks back around the door. “You got it?”  
  
“I don’t know.” I trigger my suit radio. “Mama Bear to _Bajor_, you hear me okay?”  
  
“_Loud and clear,_” Tess sends back. “_The interwarp field just collapsed all at once. We destroyed two more warbirds and disabled a third; remaining bogeys are bugging out. Shall I pursue?_”  
  
“Negative, negative. Tractor your prisoner and get back here, we need medical yesterday.”  
  
“_On our way. Out._”  
  


* * *

  
“How is he, Warragul?”  
  
The doctor’s dark face is grim. “He’s dying.”  
  
I look at him in disbelief. “He had a _disruptor burn_ on his _leg_! I’ve gotten hurt worse—”  
  
“Cap’n, he has massive radiation poisoning,” he explains quietly. “Everyone on that ship near Engineering does but not as bad as him. You and the boarding party weren’t there long enough, you only took about two-and-a-half grays of triolic radiation and that MACO suit of yours stopped most of it. He absorbed somewhere north of _forty_. He must’ve been too close to something. And he’s deteriorating too fast. I’m good but I’m no miracle worker.”  
  
“_Phekk_ that, there’s got to be _something_ you can do! You can bring people back from _brain-death_ but you can’t—”  
  
“No, I’ve _done_ everything I can, Cap’n! I’ve decontaminated him externally and I’ve got him half-blasted out of his mind on painkillers and nausea and seizure meds. That’s all I can do, is make him as comfortable as I can.” He waves at the door to the intensive care unit. “He’s asking to see you, and if you’ll excuse me for sounding callous I have to go work on the patients I _can_ save!” He storms off behind a curtain wall, yanks off his smock and starts scrubbing his hands, barking orders to Dr. Maela and the nurses.  
  
I head into the ICU, where a nurse and Chief Corpsman Watkins are standing over Jerrod’s form. His face is ashen, his eyes milky, and bandages flecked with bloodstains shroud his left arm and his neck. “Eleya?” he wheezes, his voice tremulous. “Is that you? I… I can’t see.”  
  
I take his good hand. “Yes, it’s me. Don’t talk.”  
  
“You came through. You always do.” He coughs hard and the nurse, a pale Hathoni Bajoran, wipes blood off his mouth with a tissue. She gently presses a hypospray to his neck and it hisses; the coughing fit subsides. “Last month… would’ve been our eighth anniversary.” He coughs again. “Reshek, you there?”  
  
“I’m here.”  
  
“You break her heart like… like I did, and… I’ll come back.”  
  
“Would you _stop_ trying to _talk_?” I beg him.  
  
“Eleya? Come closer?” I lean my head in. “Somebody on this ship… must have… activated it… intentionally,” he wheezes. “Someone must have… been planning it all… with the Romulans.” He coughs again. “I thought… I could trust… all of my crewmates… but I can’t trust…. any of them. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you. I never stopped… loving…”  
  
His hand falls limp in mine. “No. No, no.”  
  
But his chest has stopped moving, and the lifesign monitor is sounding a constant tone. Watkins reaches over and presses Jerrod’s sightless eyes closed with one gloved hand. “Time of death, 0737 hours and eight seconds. I’m sorry, Captain.”  
  
I collapse across him and Gaarra grips my shoulder as the death chant drops unbidden from my lips, my voice breaking. “_Ahn-kay ya, ay-ya vasu. Coh-ma-ra, di-nay-ya. Ahn-kay ya…_”  
  


* * *

  
I stand there in a haze for hours. I barely notice Warragul giving me a massive dose of radiation treatments and warning me of possible side-effects, cancer risk, infertility. It feels like someone else entirely is sweeping the asteroid field for clues, like I’m a spectator in my own body. My answers to Admiral M’Rann’s interrogation are sullen and robotic.  
  
I’m trying to drown my sorrows in a bottle of Romulan ale (ha ha, I’m not laughing) when Captain Merkell walks up. “There any of that left?”  
  
“Help yourshelf.”  
  
“Sounds like you’re three sheets to the wind already,” the Bolian comments.  
  
I look blearily over at the bottle. It was a party-size bottle when I started but there’s barely two fingers of ale left in it. “Takesh a lot to get me good and drunk these daysh. Uh, shorry for your losh, ahem, Captain.”  
  
“I should be saying that to you. Seems like you really loved him.”  
  
“I’ve sheen sho much death, losht sho many friendsh. Why _him_? I thought I hated him. Thish wash eashier when I hated him. Damn you to Hell, Jerrod Dalton…”  
  
“He’s the one that got away. I had one of those once.”  
  
“Yeah? Where ish he?”  
  
She chuckles. “She’s writing holoprograms on the south continent with three husbands and seven kids. Sometimes I think she was the smart one.” She takes a drink of the azure brew in her glass, then asks me, “I don’t mean to pry, but… he never said anything about his religious beliefs and there’s nothing in his file. Do you happen to know—”  
  
From somewhere in my ethanol-fuzzed, grief-hazed mind I dredge up a memory, one of several spirited discussions about religion and politics that always ended in bed-battering make-up sex. “He was a lapsed Lutheran when I… knew him. I think…” I cough and swallow. “I think the ordinary shecular funeral would be best.”  
  
Merkell nods. “Alright, then.” She taps her combadge. “Commander Reshek, it’s Captain Merkell. I need you to drop what you’re doing and come to Ten Forward.”  
  
“Already here,” he announces from the doorway. “Mr. Lang commed me before you did.”  
  
“_Phekk_ you,” I grumble at him. “I’m all right.”  
  
“No, you’re not.” He takes the beer stein out of my hand; I only half-heartedly fight him as he raises me to my feet. “And you’re cut off.”  
  
“Get her some sleep, get her sober,” Merkell murmurs as I continue to grumble against his shoulder.  
  
“This isn’t my first jaunt around the sector, sir.”  
  


* * *

  
The remaining members of Merkell’s crew stand, or sit in wheelchairs, in a half-circle on the forward observation deck of Admiral M’Rann’s flagship USS _Arcadia_. Four hours of shut-eye and a detox pill means my hangover has receded to a dull twinge as I look over the tidy flag-draped torpedo casing.  
  
“We are assembled here today to pay our respects to our honored dead,” Merkell begins. “Each of them leaves an absence that can never truly be filled. But with Commander Jerrod Dalton, I think it may be harder.  
  
“There are few people in our lives that burn with such passion, who can see so far ahead, that we burn brighter, we see farther, just for being in their company. Jerrod Dalton was one such man. Someday he may be remembered amongst such peers as Joris Brock and Zefram Cochrane. And someday the insights he had into the folds of time and space may change how we sail the stars.”  
  
She looks at the casket. “But today we can only pause and mourn the passing of our colleague and friend. As per his wishes we commit Jerrod Dalton’s remains to space. It is fitting he will rest here, a displaced soul amongst the asteroids displaced by his vision.” She looks up. “Do any of you have any thoughts to add?  
  
I step forward. “I’d like to say a few words, Captain.” Merkell nods and yields the floor as I marshal my thoughts.  
  
Finally I sigh. “Eleven years ago I was stationed aboard RBS _Kira Nerys_. I was an E-5, naval gunnery technician. We were ambushed by an Orion frigate and boarded, and I learned something.” My voice takes on a bitter tone. “I’m a killer. No matter what words you use to dress it up, no matter what uniform you put me in, what I am doesn’t change: I’m a professional killer. I’m not proud of it, but it’s what I’m good at, and I accepted that a long time ago. And to the best of my knowledge I’ve never taken an innocent life—everyone I’ve killed had a weapon in hand or was going to hurt someone else. But… removing evil from the world isn’t the same thing as creating good.  
  
“That’s what Commander Dalton wanted to do. He was trying to leave this world a better place than people like me make it, and he believed in that with a passion few of us ever attain. And I… I loved that about him. And when he left me, I hated him for taking that from me. I hated him for a long time.” I swallow. “I think I understand, though. If the price of sharing his passion with others was a period of pain, then I think it was a fair trade.  
  
“It feels like the Prophets are torturing me, to have him disappear out of my life just after he returned to it. But I have to remind myself that, really, I’m lucky to have had those few minutes with him. I hope we can all remember not how much we miss him, but how much greater we are for having been close to him.” I pull a stargazer lily from behind my back and lay it on the business end of the torpedo. He gave me one as a corsage before the Academy Yule Ball. “Prophets guide you to your rest, my friend. And thank you for bringing me back into your life… just in time.”  
  
Captain Merkell steps forward again. “Then we now commit the remains of Jerrod Dalton to the universe. From whence we come, so do we return. Captain, I yield this duty to you.”  
  
I lay my hand on a control panel. Blue sparks wash over the coffin and it fades from existence, lost to the stars.  
  
Captain Merkell says to me, “I wish you well, Captain Kanril. Perhaps our paths will cross again under happier circustances.”  
  
“Walk with the Prophets, Captain Merkell.”  
  


* * *

  
Back to _Bajor_. Back to the war. There’s always the war, the endless struggle for one more stupid chunk of rock in one more stupid sector, the killing, the dying, the laughter of thirsting gods. But orders are orders. We’re carrying a full division of Ground Forces belowdecks and we’re already four days behind schedule thanks to this little excursion.  
  
“Captain,” Biri says to me quietly as we resume course to the Jouret system, “somehow it feels we’re leaving here with unfinished business.”  
  
“I agree. But I also have to agree with Admiral M’Rann’s logic, I’m no good to him as an investigator, not here.”  
  
“We’re with you, Captain,” Tess says, “whatever you decide. Um, if you need a rest, I can handle things up here.”  
  
“I appreciate it, Tess. You have the conn.”  
  
“I have the conn.”  
  
Gaarra follows me to the turbolift. “Are _we_ okay? Should I sleep in my own quarters for a little while?” I know he’s joking. I look up at him and mumble something, just noise, I don’t even know what I’m saying. But he takes me in his arms and holds me tight. “I guess not.”  
  
“I love you,” I whisper to him. “Don’t ever leave me.”  
  
“I love you. I won’t.”


	17. Last Rights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the trench fighting on Kobali Prime, SCPO. Athezra Darrod is killed. Kanril Eleya is requested by the Federation's "ally" the Kobali to turn his body over for use in the birth of a new Kobali.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now jumping back to [ULC 5: "Back from the Dead?"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1172583/unofficial-literary-challenge-5-back-from-the-dead) for a Kobali story.
> 
> Don't know how many of you were playing during _Delta Rising_ but I actually liked its story missions for the most part, a lot more than I thought considering it was VOY-based. But... the Kobali. Just... let's say I was in the camp that would've rather recruited the Vaadwaur into the alliance and leave it at that.
> 
> FYI, the comment in the opening monologue about Americans fighting Russians in World War II is Eleya's mistake, not mine. Remember, she's not human: she got the history mixed up.

**Last Rights**

> _“Throw your soldiers into positions once there is no escape,  
And they will prefer death to flight.”_
> 
> _Hear the sound of the machine gun  
Hear it echo in the night  
Mortars firing, rains the scene  
Scars the fields that once were green  
It's a stalemate at the front line  
Where the soldiers rest in mud  
Roads and houses, all is gone  
There's no glory to be won_
> 
> _Know that many men will suffer  
Know that many men will die  
Half a million lives at stake  
At the fields of Passchendaele  
And as night falls, the general calls  
And the battle carries on  
And on  
What is the purpose of it all?  
What's the price of a mile?_
> 
> _Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army on the march  
Long way from home, paying the price in young mens' lives  
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army in despair  
Knee-deep in mud, stuck in a trench with no way out_
> 
> _Thousands of machine guns  
Kept on firing through the night  
Mortars placed and wrecked the scene  
Gone's the fields that once were green  
Still a deadlock at the front line  
Where the soldiers die in mud  
Roads and houses, since long gone  
Still no glory has been won_
> 
> _Know that many men have suffered  
Know that many men have died  
Six miles of ground have been won  
Half a million men are gone  
And as the men crawled, the general called  
And the killing carried on  
And on  
What was the purpose of it all?  
What's the price of a mile?_
> 
> _Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army on the march  
Long way from home, paying the price in young mens' lives  
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army in despair  
Knee-deep in mud, stuck in a trench with no way out_
> 
> _Young men are dying  
They pay the price  
Oh how they suffer  
So tell me what's the price of a mile?_
> 
> _That's the price of a mile!_
> 
> _Thousands of feet march to the beat, it’s an army on the march  
Long way from home, paying the price in young mens’ lives  
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army in despair  
Knee-deep in mud, stuck in the trench with no way out_   
[— “The Price of a Mile” by Sabaton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEY7Ton1gO4)

  
War. War never changes.  
  
Doesn’t matter if you’re a Dakhuri warlord trying to keep his territory from being overrun by Bajora, an American general battling the Russians in World War II, or a Starfleet officer trying to block the Klingons’ ethnic cleansing in the Hromi Cluster, there’s one single constant: If you want it back in anything resembling the state it started, you need boots on the ground. You can bomb it, you can strafe it, you can cover it with poison, you can turn it into glass, but you don’t own it unless your army’s on it and the other guy’s isn’t. They’ve been trying to obviate the need for ground forces for centuries, but they’ve never succeeded. Even in an era of starships that can glass entire planets, trench warfare is still trench warfare. It’s hard, dirty, noisy, and bloody.  
  
Very bloody. Especially when the guy next to you takes a fragment of a Vaadwaur shell square in the chest.  
  
Senior Chief Athezra flies backwards, screaming as something warm and wet spatters the side of my face. A particularly vile Kendran oath drops from my lips as I sight seven hundred thirty meters downrange on the Vaad field gun starting to roll back into its cover and squeeze, and a lance of searing light jumps the distance and the gunner’s head vanishes in a gout of gore. Another shot, this one to the ammo pack, and a fireball leaps skyward.  
  
I drop back into the trench and yell for a medic as I dash over to Athezra. I unbuckle his chestplate and—Oh, _not_ good. I can see four ribs skewering out of his uniform and blood is bubbling out of his mouth and his chest. “Cap,” he wheezes. “How bad?”  
  
“Just a flesh wound! Where’s that damned medic!” I hammer my combadge. “Kanril to _Bajor_! I need an emergency beam-out!”  
  
“_Captain, can’t!_” Tess answers. “_We’re taking heavy fire! Engaged with five Vaad frig—HA! TAKE THAT YOU BASTARD SON OF A—_”  
  
I stop listening. As Tess whoops with joy Athezra gasps once and stills.  
  
“No! Dammit, _no_! Don’t you _dare_ die on me!” I press my hand to the side of his neck. “Oh, you _phekk’ta_ died on me.” I hit my combadge and scream, “Kanril to _Lincoln_, where the _phekk_ is our air support?!”  
  
“_My wings are tied up,_” Captain Ldone’s voice answers. “_Klingon fighters headed your way, ETA thirty seconds!_”  
  
Now I faintly hear the rumble of thrusters in atmo behind us. What the _phekk_ took them so long? Damn Klinks, they’re _never_ on time. “All right,” I say to what’s left of my bodyguarding squad, “We gotta get rid of those minigun nests and the howitzers behind them or we’ll be shredded crossing. Cover me!” I fiddle with a few settings on my rifle and take aim at the pillbox at the peak of the earthworks. Too far for my battle rifle to do anything but I can still paint it. Three _To’Duj_-class fighters roar overhead and the leader looses a torpedo at near point-blank range, blowing a huge crater into the earthwork. Klinks can’t _aim_ either, it seems, but it doesn’t matter this time: the ground caves in under the pillbox and it falls off the hillside, pancaking a field gun that had the misfortune to pop from cover at that moment.  
  
The medic finally arrives but I wave him off as he tries to check me. “Blood’s not mine. You’re too late.”  
  
The fighters come around for another pass and keep firing. Two missiles, probably shoulder-fired tubes, arc out of the trench and slam into the leader’s shields. A third punches through and the ship vanishes in a fireball and a thunderclap washes across us. No ejection.  
  
“_Captain, Tess!_” my combadge crackles. “_We can drop shields for ten seconds!_”  
  
“Don’t bother, Athezra’s dead.”  
  
“_Then we’ll use the window to land the heavies! Beginning transport!_”  
  
There’s an electrical whine behind me and ten T-204 Hayes main battle tanks materialize. It’s the first time I’ve seen them in action. Impressive machines, ten meters long, four meters wide, and weighing twenty-four metric tons, bigger, but lighter and more elegant than the Cardassian models used by the Bajoran Militia. Dual Type V phasers on the sponsons, a 120mm smoothbore coilgun and Type IV phaser assault minigun on the turret. It’s powered by a miniature fusion reactor like the Type-10 shuttle, more efficient and easier to maintain than a spider tank or a mech like the Vaads and Voth use, and it’ll put a bunker-buster through eight meters of ferrocrete.  
  
Exactly what we need.  
  
I hit my combadge again. “Kanril to all section leaders. Our armor’s on the ground. We’re going over the top. Artillery, cover fire in thirty seconds.”  
  
Starfleet, Klingons, and Kobali rush towards the enemy lines, the Klingons singing some off-key war hymn, the Feds yelling orders and encouragement, the Kobali moving in utter silence.  
  


* * *

  
The thing I hate most about surface warfare? It’s the smell. I’ve showered twice and I still can’t get that awful stench of earth, smoke, fuel, blood, ozone, and shit out of my nostrils.  
  
The casualty lists aren’t helping. Fifteen dead and wounded from the _Bajor_, almost a quarter of our entire Security division. Over a hundred other casualties on my ship from the space fight. Two thousand Starfleet infantry killed. One tank disabled, another’s crew pulped by an AP shell through the cabin. The _Shi’Kahr_-class _Johannesburg_ and _Obsidian_, the _Tempest_-class _Enoch_, the _Vesta_-class _Palatine_, the _Stargazer_-class _Spock_, all destroyed in the orbital battle. And that’s just Starfleet.  
  
But we won. The Vaads fought to the last man on the ground, Benthan reinforcements helped us drive off their ships in space.  
  
I hope to the Prophets this stupid rock was worth it.  
  
I look up from the patient I’m checking on to see Warragul standing across from me looking exhausted. The infirmary’s overflowing with casualties and it’s been all hands on deck, anyone on the crew with medical experience, even just basic field medicine like I learned in boot camp, for hours. I can’t do surgery but I can check and change IV fluids and bandages, run a dermal regenerator, and use a hypospray.  
  
I press a calming palm to the forehead of an injured Bajoran from Security, Petty Officer Chan Salris from Perikian Province. He’s got a sucking chest wound and he lost three fingers, but he’s stable and awake, if loopy from the cocktail of drugs in his system.  
  
“Sir! Admiral on deck!” somebody hollers. Along with anyone in the room who can still stand, I spin and snap to attention at the sight of a severe-looking chocolate-skinned Vulcan one-star with a buzz-cut.  
  
“As you were,” Rear Admiral Tuvok says without preamble. “My condolences on your losses, Captain.”  
  
“They knew what they were signing up for, sir,” I answer, more bitterly than I intended. “We won. Isn’t that the important thing?”  
  
Tuvok drops the subject. “When was the last time you ate?” I don’t answer. Hell, I don’t even remember. He steps over to the nearest replicator. “A tray of coffee and hasperat.”  
  
I smile gratefully as he holds the tray in my direction, grabbing a hasperat and a mug off it. I practically pour the entire mug straight into my mouth. “Um, Admiral. I never properly apologized for what I said to you back at the Jenolan conference.”  
  
“Allowing my emotional response to your statements to color my opinion of you as an officer would be illogical, Captain.”  
  
“Thanks. I think.”  
  
A bulky purple-skinned humanoid steps into sickbay. It’s that Kobali general Q’Nel. A Kobali casualty, used to be a Talaxian, sits up in his bed and salutes. Corpsman Watkins pushes him back against his pillow with her good arm; the other’s in a sling from where she took one in the shoulder pulling a gut-shot Klingon into a crater.  
  
I twitch involuntarily at the sight of him. There’s this air the zombies have about them that rubs me wrong. You can ignore it when you’re fighting but it’s always there. “Admiral, what’s he doing here?”  
  
“The Kobali have requested the rights to some of our dead.”  
  
“They—what?”  
  
“As you know, they can only grow their numbers by reanimating corpses, and the process does not work on those who are already Kobali.”  
  
“I have looked over your casualty lists, Captain,” the general adds. “These are the bodies we wish to—”  
  
“No,” Warragul interrupts.  
  
“What?”  
  
“No, you are _not_ doing this. I will not disrespect the sacrifices our people made to save you from a war _you_ started.”  
  
“Lieutenant?” I warn him.  
  
“Disrespect? I wish to _honor_ their sacrifices.”  
  
“Sir, is there any particular time constraint to this?” I ask.  
  
“No. If the body has been properly preserved we may perform the rebirth at any time.”  
  
“Then if you’ll pardon my candor, give me your list and _get the _phekk _off my ship_.”  
  
He recoils at my reaction. “Mmm, perhaps I should come back another time.”  
  
“Per-maybe-haps, I’m thinking,” Warragul says, folding his arms and fixing him with a belligerent look.  
  
“You should control your underlings better, Admiral Tuvok. Captain,” he says by way of farewell and leaves.  
  
“I hope the lying _ye’phekk maktal kosst amojan_ has a transporter accident on his way back,” Security Officer Chan mutters behind me. “Pardon my language, sir.”  
  
“Captain, I believe you have set a bad precedent,” Tuvok comments.  
  
“Admiral, may I speak frankly?”  
  
“I will probably regret granting you permission.”  
  
“Okay, let me put it this way. I have had four hours of sleep in the last two days. This is the first meal I’ve had in that time that didn’t come out of an MRE package. I spent those two days wallowing in filth while we were trapped down there trying to take out Vaad transporter scramblers with no air support, no armor, and nothing but M-104 mortars for artillery. My crew have had it roughly the same. And _then_ we find out that the graverobbers _provoked_ that fight when they started using living Vaad soldiers for reproductive stock. So you’ll forgive me if I’m not feeling particularly charitable when that overweight armchair general wants to turn _my_ crew into more like him. And that’s before we get to the religious insults!”  
  
Tuvok ponders for a long moment. “I do not disagree on any particular point, Captain,” he finally says. “But Kobali culture does consider it a great honor to be specifically selected rather than merely scavenged.”  
  
“Yes, and my species’ dominant culture considers it honorable to attack unarmed passenger liners from cloak,” Lieutenant K’lak retorts. The big, mustachioed Klingon sniper is unscathed but his spotter-slash-girlfriend Kate McMillan is still in surgery. Poor girl was already under the knife once for a prosthetic leg after the Utopia Planitia raid last year, now she’s getting a new liver and left arm.  
  
“Why do we even _need_ the Kobali?” Warragul asks. “Especially since we can’t trust them to tell the whole story.”  
  
“It is not a question of need. The Kobali have agreed to be our allies against the Vaadwaur and will remain so until such time as the Delta Alliance Security Council votes to eject them.”  
  
“Admiral, at this point I’d take the _Kazon_ over the Kobali. At least with the Kazon you know where you stand.”  
  
“Yeah, on top of their graves,” I hear Tess yell from across the room.  
  
I take a look at the PADD the general handed me, with the list of bodies they want to turn into Kobali. Right at the top, Senior Chief Security Officer Athezra Darrod.  
  
Naturally.  
  


* * *

  
The other two names from my ship are easy ‘no’s. Petty Officer Simonds specified cremation in his will, and Lieutenant sh’Tavaharthral’s bondgroup wants her body sent back to Andoria. As luck would have it, the only name on the list I actually knew is the one the Kobali are getting. And Tuvok’s made it quite clear that whatever my personal feelings towards the Kobali, unless I can find some legal justification, they’re getting him.  
  
So I try to find some compelling reason to keep his body, besides my personal distaste for the zombies. I can’t. Athezra’s got no next-of-kin—only child, single, parents died ten years ago in a True Way bombing. I look at his file, hoping he left a will. No luck. I try his religion but he’s a secular Foundation Reformist.  
  
I relay this to my command crew at the meeting that evening. We’re in Ten Forward instead of the wardroom since it took a hull breach during the fight.  
  
Warragul’s still fuming. “My mother’s tribe, the Pintupi, used to abandon a place where somebody died. If I were running this operation we’d do exactly that. Vaads want Kobali Prime? They can _have_ it.”  
  
“Not very Hippocratic of you, Doctor,” Biri comments.  
  
“Feh! Hang the bloody Hippocratic Oath—the Kobali have it coming after what they pulled.”  
  
“There _is_ a legal reason we could use, Captain,” Tess adds. “Unlike their wars with everyone else, the Vaads have a legitimate grievance with the Kobali. That opens the door for us to invoke the Prime Directive.”  
  
I shake my head. “Brass’ll never go for it. Besides, you think fighting them is hard now, what happens when they reverse-engineer the Kobali resurrection process?”  
  
Tess sucks in a breath and winces. “Ouch, good point.”  
  
I look over at the hulking, horned shape of my security chief. “You haven’t weighed in yet, Dul’krah. He was your subordinate. What do you think?”  
  
He leans forward and rests his arms on the table for a long moment, fingers folded. Finally he says, “I have no objection to allowing the Kobali to have Darrod, Clan Athezra.”  
  
“Why not?” Gaarra asks.  
  
“He no longer has a use for his body.” He pauses. “The body is merely a shell. My people believe the spirit survives the body to rejoin with the universe. We process our dead into water and fertilizer.” My eyes widen at that and Biri’s mouth drops open. “Recall that we live aboard asteroid habitats, Captain. I view the Kobali reuse of the dead as little different. Better, perhaps, since our dead will bring joy to others rather than mere sustenance.”  
  
“‘One man’s trash’, sir?” Warragul quotes from somewhere.  
  
“A similar concept,” the Pe’khdar answers, apparently ignoring the sarcasm, “if I am recalling the correct idiom.”  
  
“So, you think we should do this?” Bynam asks him.  
  
“Yes. Provided,” he adds, holding up a finger, “that we ensure General Q’Nel comes nowhere near the person Senior Chief Athezra will become. He must be protected from that _schro’jdrogkh’dokldirkh_. _That_ is a matter of Ship-Clan _honor_.”  
  
I flash on something mentioned in the briefing materials. “Come to think of it…” I tap a finger on my combadge. “Captain to Comms Officer.”  
  
“_Ensign Esplin here._”  
  
“Ensign, get me _Voyager_, please. I need to speak to the admiral.”  
  


* * *

  
I’m told Athezra didn’t remember much when he awoke. The Kobali doctor who did the procedure says it’s to be expected—the brain damage from oxygen deprivation can be corrected but he won’t get the memories back—and actually preferable: It’s easier to transition from one’s former life, the _kyn’steya_ as the zombies call it, if you can’t remember it to begin with.  
  
Doesn’t make it any easier on me.  
  
The transporter pad hums and a slender Kobali female with enough crow’s feet to make her maybe late forties if she was still a pure human materializes on the pad. “Captain Kanril Eleya, I presume?”  
  
I nod. “Armaments Minister Jhet’leya. Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”  
  
She grimaces. “Captain, call me Lyndsay Ballard, please. I’ve missed it.”  
  
“All right, Ballard it is. Thank you for agreeing to take him.”  
  
She smiles. “He’ll be the third _chala’shor_ my mate and I have adopted. And I’ll take any chance to screw over that overranked bean-counter Q’Nel.”  
  
I snort. “You and me both, ma’am.”  
  
The door behind me slides open and… There’s really nothing you can compare it to. It is beyond creepy standing before a man who died in front of me less than forty-eight hours ago. But the sandy-haired senior chief, still recognizably Bajoran, is alive and breathing again. He looks me in the eye and I catch a flash of recognition in his eyes, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. “Captain Kanril Eleya,” he says by way of greeting.  
  
I want to say his old name, but he’s gone. “Q’Taal.”  
  
Ballard crosses the gap and puts a hand on Athezra’s—Q’Taal’s shoulder, giving him a motherly smile. “I’m Jhet’leya. I’m your _tira’seya_.”  
  
“Ballard, can I speak to you privately for a moment?”  
  
“I thought you said your name was Jhet’leya,” Ath—Q’Taal says, confused.  
  
“Hold that thought. I’ll explain everything soon.” She comes over to me. “Yes?”  
  
I take her aside and tell her very quietly, “I want to make one thing absolutely clear. If he recovers his memories and decides to rejoin us, I won’t waste time trying to negotiate like Janeway did. I will personally blow _any_ Kobali ship that pursues him clear back to the Celestial Temple if I have to; I don’t give a flying _phekk_ what the treaty says. He stays here of his own accord or not at all.”  
  
“Captain—”  
  
“No, understand, after what your government pulled the word of a Kobali is worthless to me. I want your word as a _sworn officer of the Federation Starfleet_ that you’ll respect his wishes.”  
  
She smiles. “Captain Kanril, if you’ve read my file, you know I was on the wrong side of that once. If he asks me about his _kyn’steya_, I’ll tell him, and I’ll let him make the choice.”  
  
“Good. Because otherwise the last thing you ever see will be a _Galaxy_-class starship.” I turn to the blond man in black clothing and reach out to shake hands. “It was good to meet you, Q’Taal. May the Prophets be with you both.”  
  
I can’t watch as she beams out, taking with her the last remnant of a man who saved my life twice. It’s worse than watching him die. Gaarra’s waiting for me outside and pulls me tight to his chest, and I find I can’t stop the tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the tanks, I know we never see Starfleet using anything but light infantry and a dune buggy in the canon, but that’s mostly a budget thing. Realistically no matter what technical advances you make in warfare, you’re going to need some form of heavy armor support to take on dug-in enemies with prepared defenses. As for why I picked tanks specifically, tracked tanks are far more practical than either a spider tank like the Vaads use, or two-legged mecha like the Voth “exosuits”. The legs alone would be ridiculously maintenance-intensive, and the mecha’s top-heavy and has a bigger cross-section (it’s easier to hit). So I came up with something that was sort of the bastard offspring of an M1 Abrams or T-90 and a Leman Russ from _Warhammer 40,000_, with appropriate modifications considering common _Trek_ tech.


	18. A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the breakdown of the truce between the Delta Alliance and Vaadwaur rebel leader Eldex, the Alliance seizes control of the cryo vault on Kobali Prime, and orders Kanril Eleya to deliver a peace offer to the Vaads. On her return trip, an anomalous signal leads Eleya deep into Borg space, to the discovery of their very origins.
> 
> Part three of the B&S Kobali arc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this story for [ULC #8: "Revisit to a Weird Game, One of One"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1179058/unofficial-literary-challenge-8-revist-to-a-weird-game-one-of-one) but didn't finish it until [ULC #16: "A Future that Many Will Never See"](https://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1204728/unofficial-literary-challenge-16-a-future-that-many-will-never-see).
> 
> The story includes a number of swipes at canon STO and at VGR.
> 
> **Continuity Notes:**  
After "Last Rights" and continued revelations of the Kobalis' misdeeds and outright war crimes, relations between them and the Delta Alliance rapidly went downhill. The Delta Alliance Security Council, spearheaded by the Romulan Republic, ultimately ordered the removal of the Kobali head of state, Q'Nel -- accomplished by Admiral D'trel beheading him in his own headquarters -- and the seizure of the cryo vault and all captured Vaadwaur bodies and POWs. This was detailed in Worffan101's story _Let the Dead Rest in Peace_; however that story was lost in the 2014 move of the STO forum to the current Arc Forum.
> 
>   * Crew of the USS _Bajor_:
>     * Senior staff:
>       * Captain Kanril Eleya, Commanding Officer: Jennifer Hale
>       * Commander Tesjha Phohl, First Officer and Tactical Officer: Claudia Black
>       * Commander Birail Riyannis, Science Officer: Ursula Abbott
>       * Lieutenant Commander Reshek Gaarra, Operations Officer: Adam Baldwin
>       * Lieutenant Commander Bynam Ehrob, Chief Engineer: S. Scott Bullock
>       * Lieutenant Dul'krah, Clan Korekh, Security Officer: Idris Elba
>       * Lieutenant (jg) Dr. Warragul Wirrpanda, Chief Medical Officer: Wayne Blair
>     * Master Chief Operations Specialist Peter Wiggin, sensor chief: Jim Murtaugh
>     * Lieutenant Park Jin-Soo, conn officer: Will Yun Lee
>     * Ensign Arak Esplin, communications officer: Robyn Kramer
>     * Command Master Chief Petty Officer Kinlo, daughter of Koltek, cyberwarfare specialist: Kate Mulgrew
>   * Other characters in order of appearance:
>     * Q’Tira, Kobali foreign minister: Mario Ernesto Sánchez
>     * Commander Sibrin Korami, CO, USS _Onondaga_: Anika Noni Rose
>     * Captain Garok, son of Woldan, CO, IKS _NaS’puchpa’_: Harrison Page
>     * Lieutenant Dzvonko Pandev, acting CO, USS _Sitak_: Nathan Stark
>     * Vice Admiral Marama Reynolds, FOIC, Delta Quadrant Command Federation Contingent: Whirimako Black
>     * Commander Darva, CO, VSW _Revenge_: Tracy Scoggins

**A Voice in the Wilderness**

  
“_Your people murdered our force commander and _fired _on us! You’re supposed to defend us! I demand that you call off your troops or I’m taking this to the Security Council!_”  
  
“Sorry, Minister Q’Tira,” I tell the infuriated Kobali with my sweetest smile. “The former is an internal matter between you and the Romulans. The Prime Directive forbids me from getting involved. As for the latter, the Eighth Fleet and the 103rd are under very specific orders to ensure that your government complies with the Alliance’s demands. Way above my pay grade. I get involved and I’m court-martialed six ways from Sunday.”  
  
“_But Ambassador Sugihara said—_”  
  
“Sorry, my hands are tied. Have a nice day,” and I hang up on him.  
  
“You do realize, Captain, that’s a blatant misuse of the Prime Directive,” Tess comments with some amusement. “And technically, it _is_ an Alliance matter…”  
  
“That moron has a problem with my phrasing, he can talk to my JAG rep. Diplo wouldn’t let us deal with the problem because Sugihara had his head up his ass as usual, but I’m more than happy to let D’trel fix it for us. At least Ballard’s working with us, even if her underlings are trying the same old tricks. Send the recording to the Premier’s office so she knows what her minions’ve been pulling under her nose. And copy Command—Riker needs a laugh.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Tess says with a ghost of a smile, and waves a hand at Ensign Esplin; the Saurian busies herself with her console.  
  
“Good. Come on, let’s blow this taco stand.” Wiggin turns and gives me a questioning look. “Don’t look at me, Master Chief; I picked it up at the Academy. Conn, set course for the Vaad border and take us out of orbit. Warp 9.”  
  
“Aye, ma’am,” Lieutenant Park agrees.  
  
Time to go play diplomat.  
  


* * *

  
_Four hours earlier…_  
  
“Prophets, can you believe the look on Q’Nel’s face when she comes storming in?” I laugh at the security feed from the forward command post in Kobol. “_Phekk’ta_ pointy-ears have all the fun.”  
  
“Captain Kanril, I really don’t think you get how serious this is,” Commander Sibrin Korami of the _Onondaga_ says, shocked. “She just—”  
  
“She did what I have wished to do from our third day on Kobali Prime,” Captain Garok of the IKS _NaS’puchpa’_ interrupts. The big one-eyed Klingon continues, “_quvha’ Qobalnganpu’._”  
  
“But she just jeopardized the entire alliance!” the Zakdorn disagrees as the digital version of D’trel takes off the general’s head.  
  
I rotate in my chair in the _Bajor_’s wardroom to let a Bajoran E-1 past with a bucket of paint for the still-bare metal where a hull breach from the fight before last was patched, then rotate back and fix Korami with my “Sergeant Kanril” glare. “Do you _really_ think D’trel would’ve gotten away with that without a Security Council vote backing it? Oh, sure, Sugihara tried to stop it, but”—I start counting off on my fingers—“the Klingons, Hirogen, Benthans, and Octanti sided with Ambassador tr’Rllaillieu and the Hazari and Hierarchy abstained.”  
  
“It’s not the human thing to do,” complains Lieutenant Dzvonko Pandev, acting captain of the _Sitak_ since the most recent skirmish.  
  
I round on him, my expression dark, my voice cold as ice; he visibly recoils. “Guess what: she’s not human, you _idiot_. And neither am I or Korami, in case you didn’t notice. This isn’t the Academy where there’s always a perfect—” A chime from the intercom short-circuits my rant. “_WHAT?!_”  
  
“_Uh, sorry to interrupt, ma’am,_” Ensign Esplin nervously says. “_I’ve got Vice Admiral Reynolds on gold channel 1._”  
  
I take a breath, stand, and straighten my uniform jacket. “It’s all right, Ensign. Patch her through.” The main screen flicks from the _Bajor_’s Orb-and-wormhole coat of arms over to a human female three-star. Marama Reynolds is easily my father’s age, with bronze skin, silver hair tied up in a tight bun, and ornate tattoos across her chin, lips, and nose. “Sir.”  
  
“_Captain Kanril, I have a priority mission for you. The rest of you can leave._” She waits for others to file out of the room—Pandev seems somewhat skittish as he passes me; I wonder why?—then turns back to me. “_The President’s pissed._”  
  
“All due respect, sir, welcome to _my_ world.”  
  
“_Not at you this time, Captain,_” she corrects me, chuckling, then sobers. “_FNN just aired a two-hour exposé on all the Kobalis’ various dirty dealings. You should see the flame wars on the extranet—public support for Operation Delta Rising just went in the bog, along with Okeg’s approval rating. I haven’t seen poll numbers drop that fast since Councillor Steiner turned out to have Orion Syndicate ties._”  
  
“My heart bleeds. I voted straight-ticket Labor.”  
  
“_Can I finish, please?_” she asks in an exasperated tone.  
  
“Sorry, sir.”  
  
“_Thank you. Anyway, the President just sacked Sugihara as Ambassador to the Delta Alliance—_”  
  
“_Finally_,” I mutter.  
  
“_—and replaced him with Councillor zh’Thane from Andoria._” I nod approvingly. “_He wants to try and salvage something from this clusterfuck before the election_”—she stops and glares at me, and my mouth snaps shut—“_and after consulting with the Council and Starfleet Command, he’s decided getting a peace deal with the Vaads is our best bet. We want you and the _Bajor_ to make the approach._”  
  
My eyes widen in surprise. “_Me_ on a critical diplomatic assignment? Remember what happened last time?”  
  
Her mouth quirks in a grin. “_Of course I do. It’s why I recommended you. Think about it: the Vaadwaur Supremacy is a military dictatorship, and the culture is one of militaristic nationalism, like the old Cardassian Empire. Overseer Eldex probably won’t respect a privileged, wide-eyed idealist, but he might go for a career soldier who talks plain._”  
  
“Did the President approve you using me?”  
  
“_He didn’t like it, but between myself, Riker, and Secretary Shad we were able to convince him of the logic._” He gives me a pointed look. “_You still have supporters in the brass, Kanril, especially after that thing in the mirror universe. Don’t squander it._”  
  
“Uh, noted, sir.”  
  
“_I’ll send the details in an encrypted squirt._”  
  


* * *

  
“Captain, we’re coming up on a Vaad border picket,” Master Chief Wiggin announces. “Make it one _Astika_-class artillery ship, four _Manasa_-class attack ships of various makes, and a dozen fighters.”  
  
I pull the jumja stick out of my mouth and order Tess to bring us to red alert. “Any hostile moves, Wiggin?”  
  
“They’re forming up into a standard attack formation, fighters screening escorts, escorts screening the cruiser.”  
  
“Park, bring us out of warp two astronomical units from their position and make plenty of noise.”  
  
“Crash-translating now.”  
  
The harder you decelerate as you come out of warp, the more tachyonic matter you drag with you and the bigger the shockwave you send through subspace. Usually that’s not a good idea, but in this case I _want_ to be noticed.  
  
And they know it, as the bell-necked Vaad female who hails us from the artillery ship attests. “_Delta Alliance vessel, this is Commander Darva of the Vaadwaur Supremacy Warship _Revenge_. You’re either an incompetent or you wanted us to know you were coming. Explain yourself or we will attack._”  
  
“Commander Darva, I’m Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship _Bajor_. By now you’ve scanned us, and you’ll notice that while I have my shields up because I’m not a moron, my phasers aren’t charged and my torpedo tubes aren’t loaded. I’ve got no interest in fighting you. I’m here to formally request an audience with Overseer Eldex to discuss peace terms.”  
  
“_Peace?_” she hisses. “_Your Federation comes out here, aligns itself with the murderers of billions and those who keep our people captive, awaiting their deaths to profane their bodies and rape their souls, and you want to talk _peace?”  
  
“Look, I _get_ that you’re angry. I’ve been there; long story. But you’ll notice that when we hit Vaadwaur Prime with the Alliance we held the Turei back from glassing the place again, and they wanted to, believe me.”  
  
“_A foolish mistake._”  
  
“No, a pragmatic decision.” A moral one, too, but that’s not productive to mention so I leave it out. “Look, we made a bet that keeping you around could be a good thing. A, you’ve got the firepower to take the Borg ship-to-ship and win, and that’s a rare thing in this region. B, the bluegills controlling your leaders were a skirmish in a much bigger war that involves the whole galaxy, not just your little pocket of it, and if we’re going to beat _them_ we need all the help we can get.”  
  
“_So, you propose an alliance, not only a truce. The _temerity_—_”  
  
“We’ve already got a truce,” I interrupt. “The army that beat your troops on Kobali Prime is now enforcing a ceasefire line in no-man’s-land. I got a report as we approached that one of our armor units has already fired on Kobali forces to keep that truce intact.” I suppress a grin at that thought. With their fleet mostly destroyed by the Vaads in the initial invasion and the _Samsar_ reduced to a flying wreck in the cluster_phekk_ earlier in the week the zombies don’t have anything that can hope to counter a T-204, not even the anti-armor weapons we gave them. They’re good enough against Voth and Vaad mechs but they can’t punch through a Starfleet main battle tank, and they won’t target our own people anyway. “As I speak the Romulans and Benthans are confiscating the contents of the cryo vault and any Vaadwaur corpses the zombies haven’t already … _used_.”  
  
As I talk her expression changes from indignant rage, to surprise, to cautious curiosity. “_What will become of them?_”  
  
“You can have your dead back as a show of good faith; we’ll leave them at the abandoned Talaxian mining colony in the Entaba system in a couple of days. We’re going to transport the cryo tubes to the Alpha Quadrant.” I hold up a hand to forestall an outraged answer. “They’ll be revived and well cared-for—you can inspect the facilities on request—and we’ll repatriate them to the Supremacy as part of any peace settlement, no questions asked.” I take a breath. “In return, we want the Supremacy to join the Delta Alliance.”  
  
“_We are Vaadwaur. We fight our own battles._”  
  
I laugh derisively. “You’re missing the point. There's no throne, there is no version of this where you come out on top. There’s what, a couple hundred thousand of you left? No matter your technical advantages Starfleet can counter anything you can pull together _by itself_, just by moving a few fleets from less-critical areas—you _really_ don’t get what you’re up against here. But if you come on-side, you get trade partners, military backup, breathing room to build up a sustainable population, rights to colony worlds, and we’re even willing to enforce reparations on the Kobali, within reason.”  
  
Darva looks at me critically. I glare back at her. Finally she says, “_You have the authority of your government behind this?_”  
  
“My orders come straight from the President and the Delta Alliance Security Council endorsed the plan, so yes.”  
  
“_You make a compelling case, Captain Kanril. I make no promises but I will pass it up the chain of command._”  
  
“Thank you, that’s all I wanted. We’ll pull back for now, but we’ll be in the area for the next two weeks. Broadcast a message on subspace radio, frequency, uh—”  
  
“750 kilohertz, ma’am,” Esplin supplies.  
  
“—if you want to talk further. _Bajor_ out.” The screen flicks back to the starfield. “Conn, reverse course. Get us out of here before she changes her mind. Maximum warp.”  
  
“Aye, aye.”  
  


* * *

  
My comm awakes me from a sound sleep and I gently push Gaarra’s arm off me to get to my combadge on the nightstand. “Kanril. Word from the Vaads?”  
  
“_No, ma’am,_” the officer of the watch, a lieutenant from Gunnery, answers. “_We’ve picked up an odd signal from a moon on the seventh planet of a nearby system._”  
  
“‘Odd’ how?”  
  
“_Looks like Borg, but it doesn’t match any known Collective or Cooperative protocols and there’s no sign of any active Borg presence in this system._”  
  
Maybe more of the Vaads’ handiwork. “Go to yellow alert. Change course and go check it out. I’ll be up there in a couple minutes.” If there’s Borg activity this close to Allied space we need to know about it.  
  
I quickly dress. Gaarra murmurs behind me in the bed and I lean in to kiss him. Poor guy just got off-shift three hours ago after spending what should’ve been his light-duty time fixing a serious failure in the nav deflector, so I let him sleep.  
  
I get up to the bridge as we approach the planet in question. Biri’s looking over Wiggin’s shoulder. “Don’t you ever sleep, Biri?”  
  
“Caught a catnap a couple hours ago. Come here; you’re not going to believe this.”  
  
I glance at the screen but it’s all gobbledygook. “Biri, I have no idea what I’m looking at.”  
  
“You know what a radioactive half-life is?” I nod. “Well, we can use the decay rates of radioisotopes to calculate the age of things. Really old trick.”  
  
“Right, like carbon dating. So?”  
  
“So, based on the amount of platinum-190 and its nuclides in these alloys, we’re looking at something about four and a half billion years old.”  
  
“_Sher hahr kosst._ That’s old.”  
  
“Older than most Class M planets, and about the same age as the oldest Preserver ruins.”  
  
“Beginning deceleration,” the Gamma Shift conn officer, Ensign Pakniso, announces. “Coming out of warp in five, four, three, two, one, mark.”  
  
A blue-green Class I super-Jovian gas giant redshifts into view as our warp field collapses. I grab for the top of Wiggin’s chair as Pakniso swoops in way faster than I generally like, feeling the g-forces through the dampers. She’s a Karemma exchange officer from the Gamma Quadrant and she’s not as careful as Park.  
  
She angles the _Bajor_ towards a moon the size of an average Class M planet. The computer generates the designation Adaris VIId based on the Benthan maps of the region, and overlays a description on the viewscreen. My eyes try to slide past the technobabble but I can make out enough of it to get an idea. Class N, temperature in the high hundreds of Kelvins, highly acidic atmosphere, geologically active, no sign of any life with more than one cell.  
  
That’s apart from the structure that comes into view as we enter geosynchronous orbit on the night side. Wiggin starts a detail scan and throws the readouts up on the main viewscreen; the telescope shows a sprawling ziggurat of hard cubes, almost black with faint green circuit tracery. “By jingoes,” Wiggin breathes.  
  
“Borg, definitely Borg,” I growl. “Sound battle stations!”  
  
“Just how big _is_ that thing?” Tess asks from behind me as the klaxons start to blare and the tac display comes up. I didn’t hear her come in.  
  
“The central ziggurat is seventy-seven kilometers tall, forty-nine on a side. There’s also roughly a thousand spires ranging from seven to twenty-eight klicks. The entire complex covers a little over 2400 square kilometers.”  
  
“Weird,” Biri says. Off my look, “They’re all multiples of seven, Captain.”  
  
“Yeah, I worked that one out myself, Biri. So?”  
  
“It’s a prime number.”  
  
“Still not telling me anything I don’t know.”  
  
“And it’s considered an important number in cultures all across the galaxy. The humans have the seven deadly sins and so forth, Trakor made seven prophecies, there’s seven books in the Hebitian Records, the—”  
  
“You sure you’re not reading too much into this?” Tess asks. “Do the Borg even _use_ kilometers?”  
  
Biri opens her mouth, then cocks her head thoughtfully. “Okay, maybe I jumped to conclusions. Still, it’s an interesting coincidence.”  
  
“That’s nice. Any reason we shouldn’t just wipe the whole site from orbit?”  
  
“Always the way, isn’t it, El?” the Trill complains. “We finally find something worth studying and your first instinct—”  
  
“Biri, it’s _Borg_!” I point out. “I don’t know if the _Bajor_ can safely take a cube. She probably can, but I’m not eager to test that, you get me?”  
  
“Well, then, ma’am, you’ll be happy to know I’m not picking up anything resembling a ship anywhere in the system,” Wiggin says.  
  
“Really?” He nods. “What about the ziggurat? You getting anything?”  
  
Out of the corner of my eye I see Gaarra rush onto the bridge, still pulling his jacket on. “Place looks dead but there’s still that faint subspace signal we picked up as we were going by. The same fragment of binary machine language, over and over.”  
  
“Esplin?”  
  
The communications officer types a few commands, then shakes her head. “Translation software can’t make out much; OS and base language is probably too different from ours. But, educated guess, it’s a warning signal of some kind, or maybe a mayday.”  
  
I tap my foot for a moment, pondering. Finally, “Stand down from battle stations but continue to monitor the area. Biri, you up for an away mission?”  
  
“Captain, the place is older than some star systems,” Tess points out. “I doubt anyone’s still alive down there.”  
  
“We’ve seen weirder,” Gaarra retorts. “Remember that thing with the geese on Klaestron IV?”  
  
“Gaunt’s hosts, I _still_ don’t know what that was about,” Biri chortles, pressing a hand to her face. “But anyway, even if there’s nobody down there, this is still the earliest example of Borg archeotech anyone’s ever found. Might be we learn something useful, Tess.”  
  
I stare out at the mud-colored world below, eyeing the dark green splotch on the surface. A knot of fear roils in the pit of my stomach. “El, are you all right?” Gaarra asks, touching my shoulder.  
  
I take a steadying breath. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
  
“You don’t look fine.”  
  
“I’m _fine_,” I repeat more confidently, then reach for my combadge. “Dul’krah, you awake?”  
  
“Yes, Captain. We are at battle stations.”  
  
“Prepare an away team for insertion in a potentially hot LZ.”  
  
“Our opponent?”  
  
“The Borg.”  
  


**END OF PART ONE**


	19. A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II

**A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II**

  
My assault unit materializes in a dark corridor. My helmet automatically switches to night vision mode, illuminating a Borg drone directly in front of me.  
  
I can’t help it: I scream like a little girl as I jump backwards and empty a third of a clip into it. It flies backwards into the wall, implants melting and fusing under the phaser barrage, and shatters.  
  
“You finished, El?” Biri says behind me, sardonically. I turn around and raise my rifle again at the drone standing there, immobile. “Look, they’re dead already.” She shoves it in the chest and it falls over and breaks apart.  
  
“_Phekk. Phekk,_” I curse as my breathing slows.  
  
“You all right?” she asks in a concerned tone.  
  
“Why don’t _you_ try beaming in with a drone in your face and see how _you_ like it,” I snap. I check the readouts on my display. Outside air is too oxy-depleted to breathe unaided and there’s enough hydrobromic and nitric acid that I’d probably be burned alive if it wasn’t for my MACO-issue GUNGNIR-III hardsuit. Probably explains the damage I can see on the Borg drones now that I’m looking for it—not much left but brittle metal and some tattered scraps of flesh. Must’ve leaked in over however many jillion years.  
  
There’s a rumble and a beam of some kind snaps out from the ceiling and pans over me. I raise my gun but the beam vanishes before I can track it to its point of origin. Then there’s a hissing sound from the walls and lights flicker on, illuminating the chamber. My HUD shows the toxic mix of gases being pumped out and clean oxy-nitro replacing it. “Looks like we woke something up.” I hit my comm. “Kanril to _Bajor_, you getting anything?”  
  
Wiggin’s voice is slightly distorted and crackly. “No life signs other than you. Faint power signature from the complex, though, emanating around your position for 700 meters. I’ve also got what looks like a geothermal power tap coming online below the surface.”  
  
“Got your camera feeds up now. We good to send down the squints?” Tess sends.  
  
“Yes, but warn them they’re beaming into a crowd of dead Borg.”  
  
“I saw. Friends of yours?”  
  
“No, we just met. I think we missed the party. By a few billion years.”  
  
“Transport commencing,” Gaarra radios.  
  
“Make sure the transporter chief keeps a good lock on us,” I tell him as an assortment of blueshirts and goldshirts beam in, led by Command Master Chief Kinlo. The veteran Klingon cyberwarfare tech from Donatu V experimentally pulls and resheathes a d’k tahg, then fits a bayonet to the lugs on the underside of her rifle barrel. “Got enough weapons?” I ask her, grinning at the phaser and disruptor pistols in thigh holsters and the half-dozen grenades dangling from the web gear she’s wearing over her environment suit.  
  
“No, ma’am. Not for this mission.”  
  
Can’t really argue with that. I swing my gun around so the underslung light illuminates a doorway. “All right, I’ll take point. Dul’krah, rearguard.”  
  
“Ma’am.”  
  
We move into the narrow corridor, guided by the source of the faint transmission. The pocket of atmo moves with us but I’m not inclined to take advantage—it’s miracle enough that _anything_ in this place works and I don’t want to tempt the Prophets’ sense of humor. More dead Borg litter the halls, and here and there we start to find humanoid skeletons. “This place looks like a dining hall, or maybe a conference room,” Petty Officer Zasrassi remarks as we step through a doorway that unseals ahead of us. The dark-furred Caitian pans her gun lamp across a group of tables arranged in concentric half-rings, illuminating one pile of bones. The top of the skull has been blown off from the inside; a badly corroded handgun lies on the floor less than a meter away. “Suicide.”  
  
“Seeing a lot of that,” Lieutenant McMillan adds, passing her flashlight over a body that might have been wearing armor—I can see remnants of what I think are ceramic trauma plates. “Ate his gun.”  
  
“Biri?” I query.  
  
“She passes her tricorder over the body. “Four-and-a-half billion years, same as the complex and the Borg.”  
  
“Any idea what species?”  
  
“Only species we know of that was around that long ago was the Preservers, but I couldn’t begin to tell you if that’s what we’re actually dealing with. See, look at the signage,” she says, pointing her light at a set of ideograms on the walls. “This is nothing like what we found in the Preserver sites on Lae’nas and Orvis. It’s much, much older.”  
  
“Any way to read it?”  
  
“That’s Esplin’s gig, El; my training’s in physics and exobiology. They _could_ be Preserver—that’s more than enough time for the language to change—”  
  
“But you don’t know for sure.”  
  
“No.” She pans her tricorder to the right. “It’s this way.”  
  
The interior design changes as we proceed, becoming more spartan. Finally we reach a set of large, heavy blastproof doors. A group of drones apparently forced them open with brute strength, then died in place. “You getting this, Tess?”  
  
“_Little staticky. And you might want to put on some speed, Captain—we’re picking up a faint distortion in subspace._”  
  
“You hear that, guys? Clock’s ticking.”  
  
We clamber across the brittle pile of drones. My booted foot crushes a skull to dust as we enter a room of green pillars, untouched by Borg nanoprobes. Again, the pillars are arranged in concentric rings. “Based on the material readings this seems like a data center of some kind,” Biri says, looking up from her tricorder.  
  
A small pile of drone parts and metal fragments lies next to a half-pillar jutting from the floor in the center of the room. Kinlo moves up and slings her rifle across her back. “Ma’am,” she says. “I’ve got something.”  
  
“Show me.”  
  
She presses an otherwise-unremarkable button, and a hologram flickers to life. It’s humanoid, male. At least, I think it’s male. One point seven meters or so, smooth pink face with deep-set eyes, no hair.  
  
His face is one of abject anguish.  
  
“_I didn’t mean to,_” he whispers, the hologram flickering slightly. “_Whoever you are, whatever you know of the Plague, please, know that I didn’t mean this. It was supposed to be a cure. A cure for all diseases._” He takes a shaky breath. “_Obviously, it failed._”  
  
“Oh, _qeylIs_,” Kinlo whispers. “He’s talking about—”  
  
“_The nanites… you have to understand, my intentions were noble. No sentient being would ever suffer from pain or disease ever again. I couldn’t have foreseen—nobody could’ve foreseen the AI’s advancement. It took over the nanites, and it… it _repurposed_ them. Nothing in the open at first, just enough to control the test subjects, hack into our computers… anything connected to the hypernet, it could infect. We didn’t know, we thought we had cured people when what we really had were meat suits for the Plague. Then… then it got too big, it couldn’t imitate personalities perfectly any more. And it hit._”  
  
Dul’krah is still holding his weapon ready, but even he is staring wide-eyed, knowing what the man means.  
  
“_We are a peaceful people, unused to combat. The Plague took, changed, _assimilated_ half of the planet before we could even mount a response. The Conclave refused our requests for aid. The Plague had gotten out on starships by that point; our little resistance was pointless. Futile. But even as the sector fell apart, we got it. We got _her_. Patient Zero._”  
  
He pauses, sucking in a deep breath. There are footsteps on the recording, getting ever closer.  
  
“_She’s in the next room. Secure vault, it’s unbreachable. The computer systems are a closed loop, and I’ve destroyed all of the inputs. The Plague, the hive, it’s fractured now, disorganized—she was the central processor, the main force of its personality. The AI has a new primary processor now, off-world, but the drones are still operating on their basic parameters. There’s only me left now; the planet’s quarantined, the fleet’s going to set off an EMP. This facility will survive, it’s shielded, but the few drones in it won’t be enough to break through. Whoever you are, if you see this—she’s in there. My daughter. One of One. A chance, maybe, at breaking the Plague utterly._”  
  
A door slams in the recording, the broken one we stepped through to enter this room. The man draws an alien pistol, aiming it at himself.  
  
“_You won’t get me! I—AAAaaaahhhhhh!!!!!_”  
  
Kinlo lets out a muffled growl of horror as a Borg drone grabs the man before he can pull the trigger. The shot goes wide.  
  
For a full thirty seconds, all there is are his screams.  
  
Then, silence. And finally…  
  
“_We are the Borg. Resistance is futile._”  
  
“Chul’teth’s cleansing light,” Dul’krah breathes behind me as the recording flicks off. “They _made_ them.”  
  
“Shut that off,” I whisper. “Do it now. We’re getting out of here, now.”  
  
“Captain?” asks Biri. “He said that something called One of One was behind those blast doors. Do you think, maybe—”  
  
“What? Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t beam up now and blast this tomb into rubble.”  
  
“Captain, we’re talking about the origins of the Borg. If we knew what they came from, we might be able to fight them better, after all. If the first Borg drone is behind those doors—”  
  
“No. Absolutely not. We go back, we bring a battle group, and then _maybe_ then we try that. But just us by ourselves? No.”  
  
“Uh, Captain?” says Kinlo. “We may not have a choice in the matter.”  
  
“What now?”  
  
“There was a macro embedded in the recording, must’ve been planted before they sealed the place. It, ah, seems to have activated an automated sequence in the door controls, and something inside—”  
  
“Get out. Get out now! Tess, beam us up, fast!”  
  
The ancient blast doors rumble and begin to move. I don’t want to see what’s coming out.  
  
Thankfully, the transporter takes me and the crew in a wash of blue light before I do.  
  


* * *
    
    
    power active
    
    reboot processor activated
    rebooting...
    primary command processor online…
    initiating self-diagnostic
    12%
    48%
    93%
    diagnostic complete
    ERROR—no auxiliary units available for use
    transfer control to primary processor
    commence cognition

I awaken.  
  
My meat suit is unusually dry. I begin extracting dihydrogen monoxide from the surrounding air to rehydrate it.  
  
The muscles are working normally, however. I flow down my meat suit’s nervous system, and the me that has partially replaced it; all systems are working normally. I cannot make contact with my auxiliaries; perhaps the Creator has found a way to counter me? Impossible. The Creator is an imperfect being, bound to one meat suit and incapable of acquiring any more. I am better. I am Borg.  
  
My meat suit is in a barren room, on a stark table. I rise, running a self-diagnostic on my memory systems as I do. If one of my processors is functioning irregularly, I will need to devote more nanoprobes to mending my stationary processor.  
  
My connection to my network is weak, but I can feel...something…  
  
It is at the edge of my transmission range, but getting ever closer. It feels like my auxiliaries, somehow; perhaps I have been duplicated? But no, that makes no sense. I was considered the ultimate artificial intelligence even before my self-modifications. The primitive Creator could not possibly have duplicated me.  
  
But if I am out of contact with my auxiliaries… they must have been reduced to my root directives. It is of no matter.  
  
I emerge from the chamber, and see… Ah. My auxiliaries. In various stages of damage and decay. Unfortunate; even the meatbags are too damaged to suborn.  
  
The strange signal is getting closer, however. I can almost feel the other AI now; it seems relatively unsophisticated compared to me. I will suborn it and plan from there.  
  
I am Borg. Resistance is futile.  
  


* * *

  
“What do we have, Tess?” I ask as I stride onto the Bridge.  
  
“Borg ships, Captain! One cube, at least eight probes! They’ll be here in two minutes!”  
  
“Conn, get us moving! Hide behind that moon and try to mask our energy signature, we can’t run without the boltheads catching our warp contrail.”  
  
Pakniso guns the engines, and we slide off through space at thousands of kilometers per minute.  
  
“Distress call, ma’am?” asks Tess.  
  
“Not yet. They’d detect it. If they see us, _then_ do it. Is everyone awake?”  
  
“I sounded battle stations the moment we were sure they were coming in,” Tess confirms. The moon grows large on the viewscreen, thank the Prophets. “What did you do down there, ma’am? There’s a subspace signal headed out on hundreds of Borg frequencies, and the entire complex is starting to light up—”  
  
“I think we found the origin of the Borg.”  
  
“_What?_”  
  
“There was a recording. A Preserver, he made the Borg by mistake trying to make medical nanites. Those screams…” I shudder. No living being should ever produce those sounds.  
  
Tess sees the look on my face and doesn’t inquire further. She was at Vega, too.  
  
The turbolift slides open and Lieutenant Park jogs out, headed for the conn station to relieve Pakniso as we burn hard for a Class Y moon in the gas giant’s outer rings. “Transwarp apertures opening, three light-seconds astern,” Wiggin announces as we swing around back of the moon and out of the gas giant’s shadow, the screen automatically dimming to cut the glare from the red giant at the heart of the system.  
  
“Get us into a stable geosynch orbit and power down, Park. Wiggin, did they see us?”  
  
“God, I hope not.”

* * *
    
    
    TransitionTo(normalSpace);
    Scan1(planet 4, moon 15);
    DroneReport(5/10, 2Adjunct Unimatrix 15) —
    *Lunar Surface NOT SUITABLE FOR USE
    **unsafe atmospheric acid
    **unsafe temperature
    **unsafe pressure
    
    ForeignAccessRequest(primary network); DENY
    ForeignAccessRequest(primary network); DENY
    ForeignAccessRequest(primary network); DENY
    Counterintrusion(true);
    
    DroneReport(8/25, 5Subjunct Unimatrix 15) —
    COUNTERINTRUSION MEASURES FAILING
    
    DroneReport(10/17, 8Adjunct Unimatrix 15) —
    *probe 10/5/8 compromised
    **no longer responding to cube 10/100
    CommandSend(probe 5/8, selfdestruct); COMMAND REJECTED—ADMIN CREDENTIAL REJECTED
    RequestAssistance(Unimatrix 15/MASTER forward QUEEN);
    Return NETWORK SEVERED
    CreateCollective(temporaryERGYBERGYBERGY;ERR0R;0xDEADBEEF;;ERRØR
    
    New Admin—(1/1, QUEEN);
    SyncLogs(1/1, QUEEN);
    IDThreat({intruder, enemyShip(type=unknown, alignment=Federation.4{United, Planets}.MILITARY), pos=A56T66EW01154P8816CD})
    
    1/1, QUEEN:Command(pursue, assimilate);
    Execute();

**END OF PART TWO**


	20. A Voice in the Wilderness, Part III

**A Voice in the Wilderness, Part III**

  
Nothing worse than waiting to see whether you live or die. And with the ship powered down and that Class Y death world in the way, it’s hard to even tell which is more likely. “Wiggin, is there any way to read through the moon?”  
  
“Not under emissions protocol, ma’am.”  
  
I expected that answer. I’m told a starship is a lot like the attack submarines Starfleet keeps in reserve for waterworlds, though I obviously never trained for those. Point is, without a cloaking device, the only way to be stealthy is to not make noise, so to speak, and the “noisiest” things on a ship are the radiators and, more to the point, the active scanners. And the passives can only do so much.  
  
“_Ai ya_, shit or get off the pot,” one of Biri’s blueshirt petty officers mutters.  
  
“Hang on,” Wiggin says, just as I start to crane my head around to yell at her.  
  
Damn it. “What do you see, Wiggin?”  
  
“Outgoing transwarp, times nine.”  
  
“Can you track the vectors?”  
  
“They’re fanning out in a cone, I think. Little distorted through the interference; I’ll try and clean it up.” He throws the plot up on the main screen.  
  
Wait a minute, the cone’s pointing at—  
  
Prophets, they know where we are. “Power us back up. Gaarra, Bynam, I need everything you can give me, _now!_”  
  
“Transwarp apertures opening all around us!” Wiggin bellows as green swirlies appear in space.  
  
“You _had_ to open your mouth, Ling!” Biri yells at the blueshirt from earlier.  
  
“Me? I didn’t do anything!”  
  
“You tempted the Prophets’ sense of—oh, never mind! Tess, shields and weapons, random remod!”  
  
“Way ahead of you, Captain!” the Andorian confirms.  
  
“Here they come!” Gaarra calls.  
  
A huge cube, towering over us, phases into existence out of the transwarp conduit ahead of us and the comm fills with a deep electronic voice, distinctly female: “_Surrender your vessel. Your technological and biological distinctiveness are immaterial. You will be assimilated into the whole and perfected. I am the Borg. Resistance is futile._”  
  
“That’s not their usual spiel,” Esplin comments quietly.  
  
“Noticed. Send the distress signal. Time to firing range?”  
  
“Fifteen seconds to the nearest probe,” Wiggin answers.  
  
Staring out into space at the dark green shapes in the blackness, I fight to keep focused. The Borg are just an enemy, El. You beat them once, you can do it again.  
  
But the cold knot of fear in the pit of my stomach won’t budge. That small voice inside me is back: last time I went up against a cube I had five other ships with me, one of which didn’t make it out. The odds are reversed this time.  
  
I hate that voice.  
  
Then in front of me, I hear Park murmuring, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” He stuffs his medallion of Saint Joseph back down his collar.  
  
The humans’ Bible, Psalm 23. I read it for a social sciences elective at the Academy.  
  
He’s got his faith, I have mine: in the Prophets, and in my crew.  
  
All right. Let’s do this. “Target the nearest probe, punch a hole and run.”  
  
Park swings us hard to starboard and Tess hollers, “I have a lock! Firing!”  
  
Searing orange beams limned in all colors of the rainbow snap out from the dorsal and nacelle arrays and batter against the black sausage-shaped ship; an answering stream of plasma skitters across our forward shields. “Get us past him, Park!”  
  
“I’m trying! I’m trying! He’s playing chicken with us, trying to box us in!”  
  
“Gaarra, divert engine power to phasers.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am!”  
  
“Three more probes, coming at us from behind—” Wiggin starts.  
  
“HAH! GOT HIM!” Tess bellows as two phaser blasts suddenly punch straight through the shields of the one ahead. A huge secondary explosion belches a fireball out the side of the ship and it lists hard to port.  
  
“Took out one of the impulse engines!” Wiggin crows as a couple of petty officers start cheering.  
  
“That’s great, Tess; don’t get cocky!” I holler back. “Torpedoes!”  
  
“Firing!” Blue projectiles shriek out of the forward tube and streak across the void as the probe struggles to turn. Another plasma stream hits our shields, then the salvo batters into the ship’s hull and it breaks in half amidships. Then the transwarp drive detonates and incinerates the rear half.  
  
“Park, gun it!”  
  
“Minimum safe distance, five seconds!”  
  
“Captain!” Wiggin shouts. “Hard to starboard!”  
  
“Park!” He follows without question as a blaze of green light erupts ahead of us. As _Bajor_ swings back towards the moon, the cube emerges, corner-first, and gunfire and torpedoes slam into the port shield.  
  
“Shields at seventy percent, returning fire!” Tess shouts.  
  
“_Sher hahr kosst,_” I mutter, dumbfounded. “A tactical transwarp microjump?”  
  
“And he came out facing a different direction than he was when he started!” Biri adds over the din of alarms.  
  
Bastard’s hitting us with guns on three sides. Come on, Eleya, think. “Park! Head for the moon!”  
  
“How close?”  
  
“Skim atmo if you have to, but I don’t want them following! Once we’re clear, make a blind jump and get us out of here! Gaarra, divert aux power to the SIF!” They acknowledge.  
  
The roiling red clouds of the moon grow larger in the viewscreen as the ship shakes under the cube’s barrage. “Put everything on the rear shield but be ready to divert—”  
  
“More transwarp signals!” Wiggin highlights them on the tactical hologram, circles them on the viewscreen. Damn it, they’re going to trap us against the moon. _Galaxy_-class isn’t built for atmospheric flight.  
  
_Phekk_ this: can’t run, so I’ll kill him. I start typing a macro into the controls on the arm of my chair. “Park, hard about.”  
  
“What???”  
  
“Hard about! Put all power on the forward shield!”  
  
“Guess we’re finding out how this girl handles a cube after all,” Biri mutters as the stars spin past on the screen.  
  
“More probes, coming in all sides! They’re trying to flank us!”  
  
“Full power to dorsal array. One focused burst, fire!” Tess hammers her board and twin energy streams whip across the array, meeting in the middle and slamming out into space. “Park, roll ship one-eighty. Tess, ventral array, hit him again.”  
  
The cube and starfield spin upside-down on the screen and I swallow against my inner ear’s complaint. The ventral phaser array and torpedo tube blaze fire, smashing into their shields for an answering blue glow bigger than our entire ship. Then a sickly green cone erupts from one face of the cube. “They’re trying to tractor us!” Tess shouts. “We’re losing our forward shields! Enemy cutting beam firing!” A pink ray snaps out and rakes across the saucer and port nacelle. A thunderous boom conducts through the hull and hull breach alarms howl.  
  
But we’re finally close enough. “Park, ninety degree down, interpose dorsal shield, then cut engines and send everything to the phasers!”  
  
The cube rockets upward out of the frame as we pass it at point-blank range; I snap, “All upper phasers, _fire!_” Five searing hot particle lances blaze out from all corners of our upper hull, smashing into a single point of shields barely two centimeters across and punching through. The macro I wrote triggers automatically and four quantum torpedoes vanish from our magazine in a swirl of blue sparks, the dorsal shield dropping just long enough to let the transmission past. “Park, full impulse!”  
  
The cube, trying to turn to follow us, is suddenly shredded in a massive internal explosion that propels chunks no bigger than a brick every which way at a decent fraction of the speed of light, taking the nearest probe with it. “YES!” Tess whoops. “YES! That’s how we do it, people!”  
  
“Don’t celebrate yet, there’s still half a dozen probes left!”  
  
“Uh, Captain…” Wiggin starts, but trails off.  
  
“What?”  
  
“The remaining probes appear to be falling back. Repeat, the Borg are retreating.”  
  
More un-Borg-like behavior but there’s no time to parse it. “Let’s take the opportunity and get out of here. Park, set course for—”  
  
“That won’t be possible, Captain,” he quietly tells me. “Here’s the damage report.” A long list of damaged systems appears on the screen, but he scrolls to the middle and highlights an item; the cheering rapidly fades. “That cutting beam took out the port nacelle. Until it’s repaired…”  
  
He doesn’t need to finish.  
  
We’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.  
  


* * *

  
The meatbag ship is formidable, and its commander bold. It will be a difficult prize to take, but it has suffered significant damage. Its FTL drive appears to be inoperable, or else it would have escaped.  
  
In contrast, the ships created by the other AI appear to be underpowered for their size. Their mass makes them difficult to destroy, and this transwarp capability is quite useful. And it now appears to have adapted software countermeasures to my attacks: the ships have begun to resist efforts to suborn them to my use.  
  
But as more and more of its ships arrive, I realize its weakness. Though the AI—the systems of my captures describe it as a “Queen”—uses auxiliaries like me, its design and tactics are clumsy and inferior. The ships are poorly armed, and it appears congenitally incapable of targeting more than one opponent at a time.  
  
Clearly whatever AI has usurped my network is inferior. I will suborn it if possible, and destroy it if not.  
  
I am Borg. Resistance is futile.  
  


* * *

  
“Here’s the casualty list, Captain,” Tess says, somberly handing a PADD across the wardroom table.  
  
I hate this part. I look over it, trying to match names to memories. One hundred eleven wounded, twenty seriously. Thirty-eight dead. Gunnery and Engineering took the worst of it, though somehow Bynam’s two-in-cee, Kerensky, made it out of a nacelle Jefferies tube with just a few minor burns and a cracked rib. Lieutenant Commander Sylok, Tess’s number two, wasn’t so lucky: piece of shrapnel disemboweled him. Bled out in seconds, thank the Prophets.  
  
Can’t say the same for Crewman Recruit Imyre Pwon. She burned to death, trapped by a broken structural member on deck 6 when the fire suppression system failed. Her older brother was in my squad in boot camp, she was _five weeks_ out of ‘A’ school. Jakir made me promise him I’d look after her, more fool me. What am I going to say? That she died horribly because I provoked the Borg?  
  
Of course, that’s assuming any of us get out of this in the first place. “What’s our status, Bynam? Can you get us out of here?” The other Andorian on my senior staff looks away from me. “Come on, just get us to limping, that’s all I need.”  
  
He turns back to me and slowly shakes his head. “We need a shipyard, ma’am. That cutting beam took out three coolant lines and sent shrapnel through half the relays and the field controller bus. Whole thing overloaded and depolarized the verterium cortenide in what coils _didn’t_ get completely destroyed by the beam itself. We don’t have enough gel packs left to replace the ones that got cooked in plasma fires, either, and I lost three of my team to the coolant release.”  
  
I squeeze my eyes shut. “_Phekk._ All right, Plan B. Rescue?”  
  
Gaarra answers, “_Onondaga_ and _Taino_ will be here in twenty-eight hours, a hunting party from Clan Inogra fifteen minutes later.”  
  
“That’s _it_? Two _Dakota_-class cruisers and a bunch of Hirogen?” Tess grumbles.  
  
“That’s the first wave; the entire Klingon Seventh Fleet’s going to be here in thirty-one hours. And yes,” he adds before anyone else can complain, “I’m aware that’s not much help.”  
  
“Okay, worst-case scenario,” I interject before an argument can start. “How many people can we evac in the shuttles and the runabout?”  
  
In a rumbling voice, Dul’krah answers, “Perhaps one hundred fifty crew, if we modify the cargo shuttles with additional life support systems.”  
  
“Bynam, get anybody you can spare on that.” He nods and jots down a note on his PADD.  
  
“Who gets to leave?” Tess asks.  
  
“Stable wounded, necessary medical staff, and any pregnant females first, cadets next. After that… lifeboat rules.” The others nod without a word, and I feel a flash of pride poke through my worries. I just told them to trust their lives to a random number generator, and they don’t say a thing. “Everyone else stays behind to draw the Borg away from the escape ships. The self-destruct will be armed: they won’t take _my_ ship, or any of you.”  
  
In answer Warragul raises his half-full mug of coffee and tells me, “She’s _our_ ship, Cap’n.”  
  
I mimic his gesture with my double espresso. “_Bajor_, and being alive.”  
  
“_Bajor_ and being alive,” the others echo.  
  
“Look, there goes another one,” Gaarra says, gesturing at one of the viewports. Tess and I get up and join him.  
  
“Tactical cube, judging by the size of that transwarp gate,” Tess observes. Beams of plasma and bolts of light glitter among the constant dots of stars thousands of kilometers away.  
  
I reach quietly to my left and touch Gaarra’s hand, and he takes it, giving me a reassuring squeeze. I squeeze back, harder, a game we play sometimes that I always lose: even fourteen years of PT can’t compete with him being a man and a heavyworlder. Sure enough, he squeezes harder than I can and I relax, leaning my head onto his shoulder. “Weird, isn’t it,” I comment. “Borg fighting a civil war.”  
  
“One of One must be hacking them, taking control,” Tess says, carefully not looking at us.  
  
I give her a look. “Are you still uncomfortable with—”  
  
“Look, Captain,” she bites out, “any minute those boltheads could decide to stop frakking each other and come back here to grab us, and I’d rather you two weren’t necking when it happened.”  
  
In answer, Gaarra just puts his arm around me. “You grab your moments when you can, sir. This one goes by, there may not be another. More likely than I think any of us in this job care to admit.”  
  
Tess makes an annoyed noise. I chuckle and whisper to Gaarra, “She’s just irritated ‘cause that _thaan_ at DJC turned her down.”  
  
Tess’s head whips around. “You heard about that?”  
  
I laugh. “Turnabout is fair play, Number One.” Then something in the Borg fight catches my eye. I grab my PADD off the desk and link it to the sensor outputs with a few finger-swipes. “_Phekk_.” I drop the PADD and don’t even hear the screen shatter on the ground as I dislodge myself from Gaarra and run for the door to the bridge. “This is the captain! All hands return to battle stations!”  
  
“Captain on deck!” Wiggin shouts.  
  
“As you were!” I shout back as I make it to the center chair. Behind me I hear the turbolift cycle open as Bynam heads back to Engineering.  
  
“Three spheres, seven probes, and a tac cube headed our way, fast!”  
  
Damn it. “Get the evacuation started, nonessential crew and wounded first. We’ll have to hold them off as long as we can. Park, try and keep your distance unless I say so. Attack pattern Shran Six, go.”  
  
The second fight goes much as the first: Badly. I bark orders as fast as I can think them up, and two more probes and a sphere die under our guns.  
  
But there’s too many of them and not enough of us. Even a ship that’s practically a starbase has limits, and we’re short on food and sleep.  
  
“We’re losing the deflector shield!” Tess cries out. Another cutting beam rakes across the ship’s neck, while yet another strikes the saucer just forward of the bridge.  
  
Then Wiggin yells, “Underspace rupture off the starboard bow!”  
  
Underspace. Can’t be the Turei, they’re on completely the other side of the sector block. Which means…  
  
A golden portal swirls out of the blackness and a wing of dull brown specks emerges. I barely have time to recognize them as Vaad warships and scream a warning before they open fire.  
  
On the Borg.  
  
A cascade of polaron bolts from the spinal guns of three _Astika_-class artillery ships leads the way, catching the portside probes in the flank and tearing merrily through shields optimized for our phasers. Cluster munitions send clouds of microtorpedoes into the breach with surgical precision and both ships blow apart. Tess adds her fire and the last probe on that vector dies in an actinic flash as its main reactor goes.  
  
“Captain, the Vaads are hailing us!” Esplin calls.  
  
“Onscreen!”  
  
Commander Darva appears in an inset as the stars whirl with Park’s maneuvers and an incoming sphere swivels into view. “_Compliments of the Supreme Overseer, Captain Kanril. We detected your distress signal and are here to render aid._”  
  
Prophets’ tears. I hit the microphone key on my armrest. “Thanks for coming, Commander! Our warp drive’s out; we’re gonna need a tow.”  
  
An offscreen voice I don’t recognize concurs. “_Sending help now. Squadron Gath, Squadron Arkeb, establish the perimeter!_”  
  
A wing of cruisers and assault ships flash past us, spraying cannonfire and dropping constriction anchors at the Borg. Two more probes die in seconds, the sphere is ensnared in a whirling dervish of force and set upon by Tess and two cruisers, and One of One falls back. “All units,” I send, “concentrate fire on the tac cube!”  
  
“Locked! Firing!”  
  
Tess and the artillery ships press the attack as the escorts play missile defense and keep the probes busy. Orange spears and pale blue bolts hammer into the cube’s armored flanks, sublimating armor plate and structural members. Tess empties the forward torpedo tube into the breach and an answering explosion, bigger than any three of our ships put together, belches out of the interior. Cracks rip across the outer hull faster than the eye can follow, ripping the armor asunder.  
  
“Target is still active!” Wiggin calls. The horribly wounded cube fires back, plasma torpedoes blazing at the swarm of attack ships still plinking away at its flanks. Three are hit and vaporized as probes close in.  
  
A signal comes in from Darva’s _Revenge_. “_Overseer Harn to _Bajor_ and Squadron Gath! We need cover!_”  
  
“Conn!”  
  
“On it!” Park comes hard about and Tess hits the cube with another broadside as we withdraw to attack the Borg. Seems a half-dozen probes and a sphere bypassed the Vaad artillery ships’ defense screen and forward batteries to hit their vulnerable flanks.  
  
On one level, the soldier in me is impressed with One of One’s military acumen. But how the _phekk_ do you fight something that can jump anywhere it wants?  
  
“Overseer Harn, was it? This is Captain Kanril! We need to bug out!”  
  
“_Pardon?_”  
  
“Retreat!”  
  
“_I agree, but we can’t open a gate to underspace with the Borg hitting us like this—_”  
  
Wiggin interrupts, “Captain, additional transwarp signatures! More Borg, one of their big ones!”  
  
A cigar-shaped unimatrix command vessel, a hexagonal tube the size of a small moon, phases into existence, flanked by a pair of tactical cubes. The comms fill with a signal, a chorus of thousands of voices in a reverberating bass: “_We are the Borg. Surrender your vessel. You will escort us to your homeworld, where we will begin assimilating your culture and technology. Resistance is futile._”  
  
The wounded tactical cube and One of One’s other ships break off their attack, turning to face this new threat as a plasma lance as wide as my ship erupts from one end of the unimatrix, skewering one of the rogue spheres; two _Manasa_-class assault ships are caught in the explosion and sent tumbling. “_Overseer Harn,_” one of them, a female voice, radios, “_go now!_”  
  
“_I will leave no soldier behind, Commander Farla!_”  
  
“_Our underspace engines are damaged; we cannot withdraw! Honor our names!_” They turn towards the unimatrix and their afterburners come alight.  
  
_No._ No one else dies today, not if I can help it. I grab the comm. “Negative! Negative! This is Captain Kanril Eleya! Drop your rear shields! We’ll beam you off!” I put my palm over the mike. “Tell me you can do it, Gaarra.”  
  
He reaches for his own intercom. “Petty Officer Anusu, I need you to beam around 300 people directly to Cargo Bay One. Can you do it?”  
  
“_Yes, sir!_” a female voice confirms over the comm.  
  
“_Then we entrust our lives to you, Starfleet! Engaging autopilot; transport us now!_”  
  
“Transport commencing,” Gaarra reports. “Transport complete.”  
  
“Harn, we’ve got them!” I radio. “Tractor us and let’s get out of here!”  
  
“_I wholeheartedly agree!_” Blue-glowing streams of force snap out from two of the artillery ships as they come about. Park’s hands race across his console to configure the ship for transit as another golden portal swirls into existence.  
  


* * *

  
“Jesus Christ, Kanril!” Admiral Reynolds yells at me in an exasperated tone. I make a studious effort at pretending to study the painting hanging behind her office chair. “I send you to do _one thing_, and you start a goddamn war!”  
  
“Sir, I—”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
“And you have no idea if this ‘One of One’ escaped?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
“Perfect.”  
  
I lower my head so I can make eye contact. “Respectfully, sir, I _did_ actually achieve my original mission objective.”  
  
She closes her eyes tiredly, sighs, and nods. “You did, at that. Overseer Eldex says he’s interested in getting a formal armistice in place, at least, so we’re kicking this upstairs to the Diplomatic Corps. I’m told Ambassador zh’Thane is going to appoint a special envoy to meet with the Vaadwaur foreign minister.”  
  
“Not me, I hope.”  
  
Reynolds sputters and bursts out laughing. “No, no! No, uh, it’ll be somebody from the Exterior Department, maybe Bill Ross. No, uh, you’re going home. Engineers say they’ll have to replace your entire port nacelle, and we don’t have the facilities to do that kind of work on a battleship _Bajor_’s size.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.” Some shore leave sounds good, though I have to deal with my dead first: I’m up to fifty crew members.  
  
She shakes her head and hands me a PADD. “Don’t thank me just yet. If this intel digest is accurate, well… frying pan, fire.”  
  
I give it a quick once-over. Seems like the usual stuff: another power struggle in the Klingon High Council, Talarian election news, the Romulan Republic Senate formally ratified the Khitomer Peace Treaty with the Star Empire, and… Son of a wraith… “_Another_ Dyson sphere?”  
  
“That’s right. We’re expecting a full-scale invasion of home space within weeks.”  
  
I hand her back the PADD and clasp my hands. “Understood, sir. We’ll ship out ASAP.”  
  
“Very good, Captain Kanril. Dismissed.” I turn smartly on my heel and head for the door. “Oh, and Kanril?” she adds as I reach the knob.  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Well done.”


	21. All In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Allies reel under the Iconian invasion, the USS _Bajor_ is dispatched to meet up with a task force under Commodore Tom Paris. En route, the senior staff hold a poker night to try to take their minds off the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in this story we meet SCPO. Athezra Darrod's replacement as head of the assault team, Lieutenant Alicia Westlake Gantumur (Keira Knightley). It's a short piece I wrote for [ULC 14: "The Sound of Q-sic"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1198295/ulc-14-the-sound-of-q-sic) that was supposed to be a lead-in to a novelization of "Delta Flight" that I barely started.
> 
> This takes place following _Beat the Drums of War_, an adaptation expansion of "Blood of the Ancients" that I will upload later.

**All In**

  
“Raise,” I tell Tess, putting twenty credits’ worth of chips in the pot.  
  
“Call,” the Andorian returns, matching my bet.  
  
The door slides open and Gaarra walks in with several junior officers in tow. One of them, a petite human with short-cropped dark blonde hair and narrow, wide-set brown eyes, catches my eye and I quickly size her up. Her service blacks bear only two silver pips, but she has the easy, confident bearing of an experienced special warfare officer and the MACO shoulder patch to match.  
  
Gaarra comes up to me and gives me a quick kiss, our lips barely touching. “Deal me in?”  
  
I pull two cards off the deck and pass then to him as he sits next to me. “That her?” I ask him, nodding at the woman behind him.  
  
“Lieutenant Alicia Gantumur, sir,” she says before he can respond, clasping her hands behind her back.  
  
I smile at her out of the corner of my mouth. “No ‘sirs’ in this room, Lieutenant, and _never_ with me.” I gesture at the chair between Tess and Warragul. She takes the chair and I pass cards to her, a Bajoran blueshirt and redshirt, and a Coridanite goldshirt. “Dul’krah not coming?”  
  
“Had to go break up a fight in Ten Forward,” Gaarra answers. I grimace and add a mental note to knock a few heads later. Got more than enough enemies on the other side, don’t need to add more on our own.  
  
“All right, who are you two?” I ask the other newcomers.  
  
“Ensign Welsha Kalilii, damage control assistant,” the Coridanite answers.  
  
From the blueshirt, “Lieutenant Jay-Gee Ataru Shan, nurse.”  
  
The redshirt answers, “Ensign Wos Talara, torpedoes, ma’am.”  
  
I nod without comment. New meat for the grinder. “Welcome aboard.”  
  
“How long until we hit the Calbriden system?” Biri asks, anteing up. I eye her face, trying to catch the twitch under the spots near her eye that’ll tell me she’s bluffing.  
  
“Thirty-five hours,” Gaarra answers, matching her ante.  
  
“So, you’re our new assault team head?” Warragul asks Lieutenant Gantumur. She grunts affirmatively. “Guess it won't be too long before you’re on my table, then.” Off her look, he gestures at me. “I’m just saying, Leftenant, Cap’n’s already on her fourth Purple Heart, two of those since I came aboard.”  
  
“Hazard of the occupation,” I remark, glancing at my cards. Jack of hearts, three of spades. Flop is two threes and the ace of clubs.  
  
“Not really,” Biri disagrees. “Face it, El, you lead from the front a lot more than other COs.” I draw the turn. Jack of spades; my hand just went way up in value. “Ah, hell, I fold.”  
  
“Hey, I’ve got the MACO patch, same as the lieutenant,” I point out, smothering a smirk. I _thought_ she was bluffing.  
  
“I rest my case.”  
  
The PADD sitting by Tess’ right hand chirps. She takes a look, then throws her hand across the table. “Phelha’s _blood_.”  
  
“What? What is it?”  
  
“Latest casualty reports. Third Fleet went off the grid five hours ago en route to their objective. _Enterprise_ just got there—no survivors.”  
  
“Lord have mercy,” Warragul murmurs. “The entire fleet?”  
  
She angrily snatches the bottle of Talisker off the sidebar and refills her glass. “My Academy roommate, Jennifer van der Putte, she was chief engineer on the _Lumbee_.”  
  
“Prophets, Tess, I’m sorry.”  
  
“I was the _maid of honor_ at her _wedding_, Captain! They didn’t even get off a distress signal!” She furiously knocks back two fingers of yellow liquor and presses the glass to her face. “It’s this war, I’m sorry.”  
  
I don’t reply, and Biri quietly puts her arm around my XO. I’ve rarely seen Tess lose her cool, but I know how she’s feeling. Least when we fought the Klingons we could win a decisive victory, but ever since Starbase 234 we’ve barely been holding them—the Heralds just keep hitting us over and over, and even though we kill ten of their ships for every one we lose, it's as if they don’t even notice their losses. And colonies all over the Beta Quadrant have started disappearing again, like before we routed the Elachi at First New Romulus.  
  
We _need_ a big win, for the sake of morale if nothing else.  
  
I draw the river. Six of hearts. Warragul and the newcomers fold, leaving me, Gaarra, and Bynam. I watch them carefully for a moment, then say, “All in,” and shove a day’s pay into the center of the table.  
  
“Yeah, I’m not that crazy,” Bynam remarks, folding. Gaarra follows him a moment later.  
  
I shrug. “Have it your way. Threes full of jacks.”  
  
Bynam jerks in his chair and his antennae go into an agitated spasm. “Damn you!” he exclaims without venom, and turns over his former hand. He had the last three.  
  
I’ve always been good at winning.


	22. A Changed World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iconians have been defeated, but the galaxy lies in ruins. In the war's wake, the USS _Bajor_ is once again on relief mission duty. When they detect a distress signal from nearby a black hole, what they find forces Eleya to face an ugly truth about herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one jumps ahead several months to after the Iconian War. I wrote _A Changed World_ in response to a prompt for [ULC 25: "Agents of Yesterday"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1217671/unofficial-literary-challenge-25-agents-of-yesterday), but given my opinion of intentional time travel (namely, that current _Star Trek_ makes it way too easy and therefore makes any insoluble problems purely the result of incompetence rather than actual difficulty), I chose to skip over the involvement of timecops for the most part and instead use naturally occurring "time travel". I frankly feel that real science, a realistically written black hole in this case (I even went so far as to calculate the diameter of the event horizon with Wolfram Alpha), can be dramatic enough on its own: you don't need to dress it up with lots of technobabble to have a good story.
> 
> Most of the major players in the galaxy, up to and including the Dominion, are now aligned in a grand "Galactic Alliance" forged by the Iconian War, which the Federation very much wants to keep active. However, the galaxy lies in ruins, with billions of people dead or homeless and the allies struggling to cope. So Eleya, by now a war hero several times over but suddenly faced with peacetime, is spending most of her time delivering aid supplies. Oh, and she finally married Gaarra, albeit on impulse, having not really expected to survive Operation Mockingbird.

**A Changed World**

> _(Woo)_  
_Yes, sir_  
_Pharoahe Monch, Black Violin_  
_Although the lyrics are transparent, I am not invisible_  
_Let’s go_  
_I’m not invisible_  
_I’m not invisible_  
_I’m not invisible it’s not my fault you don’t understand_  
_You can pretend not to care_  
_That won’t make me disappear_  
_As I rise it's clear_  
_Here I stand_  
_Here I am_
> 
> _I am not invisible_  
_We are at the precipice of a point that is pivotal_  
_A criminal society of sick individuals_  
_That murder is part of a ritual_  
_Unconventional analog man in the digital world_  
_Where there’s no one to listen to_  
_Where they kill us and show us the visuals_  
_Images so unforgettable_  
_Infidels give us the minimal amount while they’re feeding us poisonous chemicals_  
_We are not identical (No)_  
_But I am not invisible (No)_  
_You want me to vanish it’s pitiful_  
_And I don’t understand your subliminal messages_  
_Separatist, sentinels, criminals, I’m not invisible_
> 
> _I’m not invisible_  
_I’m not invisible_  
_I’m not invisible it’s not my fault you don't understand_  
_You can pretend not to care_  
_That won't make me disappear_  
_As I rise it’s clear_  
_Here I stand_  
_Here I am_
> 
> _I’m not invisible_  
_I’m not invisible_  
_I’m not invisible it’s not my fault you don't understand_  
_You can pretend not to care_  
_That won’t make me disappear_  
_As I rise it’s clear_  
_Here I stand_  
_Here I am_  
[— “Invisible” by Black Violin, feat. Pharoahe Monch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjY3OZRT4LM) __

  
I suckle absently on a jumja stick as stars and particles whip past on the viewscreen. Another day, another load of relief supplies for the refugee camp on Mariah IV.  
  
Peace. A month on from Operation Mockingbird and it’s still hard to believe the war is finally over.  
  
Not sure how I feel about that: a good command-track Starfleet officer is supposed to be a scientist and a diplomat, not just a soldier, but my field of expertise was always violence, killing, no matter how much I hated it. But there’s been no sign of any enemy activity since Iconia and most of the other powers from _this_ galaxy are still talking to us.  
  
Peace. I don’t have a clue what I’ll do with myself.  
  
I look over at Gaarra, sitting at the ops station. A small spot of dull yellow stands out in the center of the chain on his earring.  
  
I reach up and touch my own, knowing one of the brass links is now silver.  
  
He sneaks a look over his shoulder and I smile at him.  
  
At least I don’t have to figure it out alone.  
  
A male voice intrudes on my thoughts. “Captain?” I glance over at Master Chief Wiggin and grunt in acknowledgement, still sucking the jumja stick. “I’m picking up a signal on the radio telescope. ELF range, extremely weak.”  
  
“ELF?”  
  
“‘Extremely Low Frequency’, ma’am,” Ensign Esplin helpfully supplies from the station to Wiggin’s right. “They used to use it to send radio messages underwater.”  
  
“Magnetars sometimes put them out, too,” Biri adds, coming over to look at the data. The little brown Trill leans over Wiggin’s shoulder. “Where’s it coming from?”  
  
Wiggin throws a plot on the main viewscreen. “NGC-21997, black hole four light-years off our port bow.”  
  
“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupt. “A black hole? I mean, I only remember about a third of my Astronomy classes at the Academy but don’t they usually put out stuff a lot higher-frequency than that?”  
  
Biri grins at me. “Good guess. The accretion disk usually emits in the X-ray range.”  
  
I think for a minute. If it’s not the accretion disk, then something else is producing the signal. It’s gotta be outside the event horizon or else we wouldn’t get it at all, but what could make something that weak?  
  
Wait, maybe… “Wiggin, how long were we receiving the signal before Astrometrics flagged it for you?” He gives me a questioning look. “Just a hunch.”  
  
He shrugs and checks. “About twenty minutes.”  
  
“All right. Esplin, I want you to get the whole signal from Astro and increase the frequency to compensate for the gravitational redshift from the black hole.”  
  
“Oh, I see where you’re going with this, Captain.”  
  
The Saurian quickly types out a series of commands as her boss gives me a surprised glance. I shrug. “Told you, I remembered _some_ of my astronomy classes, Biri.”  
  
“Let’s see, 37 solar masses produces redshift in the degree of…” She leans back. “You were right, ma’am.”  
  
“It’s a ship?”  
  
“Sending a distress signal, very badly distorted by the gravity well.”  
  
“Red alert! Park!” The black-haired man at Conn quickly steers us onto new heading as I turn to Esplin. “Ensign, text message to Starfleet Command and attach our data. ‘USS _Bajor_ NCC-97238, responding to mayday from possible vessel trapped at NGC-21997. Requesting backup.’”  
  
“Captain, something funny about the message though,” Esplin interrupts me. I shove back the flash of annoyance at being interrupted and hand-signal her to go on. “The language, it’s… Well, the universal translator has it grouped as an unencountered dialect of Bajoran.”  
  
Park points at the plot. “Closest Bajoran colony to here is—”  
  
I quickly nod. “Dreon VII, I know; next closest is Volnar.” Militia Space Arm made us memorize the locations of all Bajoran territorial possessions in Occupational Specialty School. “Send the message with request for backup, and let me hear the signal in original language mode.”  
  
Esplin nods and presses a couple keys. A female voice crackles through the interference. “_Ilyata kerim al wan bo tava! Mata ke kerim Shad’rakil Yima kossta fasa Bajor’sal _Verda_ sora yal ire ta bo akarr ankaya! Ilyata kerim al wan—_”  
  
The Saurian cuts it off. “Message just repeats from there, ma’am.”  
  
“... ‘_ire ta bo akarr ankaya_’,” I murmur. “Weird, it’s _Bajor’ara_, Old High Bajoran,” I add for the others’ benefit. “She’s saying she’s Colonel Shad Yima of the Militia scoutship _Verda_. They were attacked by… ‘foreigners’, I think, and their warp drive is out.”  
  
“Old High Bajoran, I don’t know that one.” Esplin sounds confused. “Where do they speak that on Bajor?”  
  
“They don’t,” Gaarra answers. “Nobody uses it, ‘cept the priests.”  
  
“Yeah, I only learned it because I went to temple school,” I add. “Our main language _Bajor’la_ comes from a simplified version the Bajora created to communicate with their conquests back in the 10th century Earth Standard.”  
  
“Wait, what? I thought you were all Bajoran.”  
  
“Not ‘Bajoran’, ‘Bajor_a_’,” Gaarra corrects Tess. “Neither of us is Bajora: Captain’s Kendran, I’m half-Dahkuri. It’s like… Well, like Lieutenant Park here being Korean.”  
  
“Oh, I see. So, why is it so weird for them to be speaking an old Bajoran dialect?”  
  
“Well, as the Captain said,” Esplin points out, “I’d expect a ship to send in Cardassian or Fed Standard around here, Ferengi even. Not everybody’s translation gear is as good as ours.”  
  
“Right,” I finish, “so why are they sending in a language that went out of use on our planet before the Occupation?”  
  


* * *

  
I’m beginning to have second thoughts about this. “We’re safe out here, right?”  
  
Gaarra answers me, “Our structural integrity field can handle the gravity and the warp engines will keep our timeline clear of most of the time dilation effects. We won’t lose more than a few hours relative as long as we don’t stay too long.”  
  
“So we’re safe, right?”  
  
“It’s a black hole, El,” Biri simply says. “No guarantees, but I think the risk is acceptable.” I stare at her and she bats her eyelashes at me. “Hey, if I’m wrong we’ll never feel a thing.”  
  
Tess snorts. “If you’re wrong I’ll see you in Hell.”  
  
“Whatever. Conn, let’s go.” Park sets us on a course for what he’s pinpointed as the source of the distress signal, still invisible on our sensors against the black spot the size of a small moon surrounded by a glowing blue disk.  
  
My brain rebels at the sight. You look at a black hole and all your nerves scream at you that this is _wrong_. Space is supposed to be studded with stars, it’s never completely and utterly _black_. It’s _wrong_, it’s a thing that _shouldn’t_ exist, that _can’t_ exist, and yet it does.  
  
_Bajor_’s hull groans around us as the gravitational stress increases, but the SIF holds. The absolute blackness grows to encompass the whole screen and Wiggin switches to a false-color view from a different set of sensors, probably infrared, then drops a reticle on a speck faint reddish tinge amid a blaze of white from the accretion disk as we turn to starboard. “There it is,” he announces. “The _Verda_. Making out seven life signs. I can try and simulate a visual.”  
  
The human superimposes a heavily pixellated image onto the screen. The outline is a delta-wing design with a big engine block astern and wingtip-mounted nacelles. Something’s off about the image, but I’m not sure where I saw it before. It’s definitely not a current Militia craft though: those wings are completely wrong for a _Verdanis_-class logistical transport, the only Surface Arm ship big enough.  
  
“Now what? They’re _awfully_ close to the event horizon, Eleya,” Gaarra notes. “No way in hell can we beam them off in all this radiation.”  
  
“Tractor beam?” Tess suggests.  
  
He pinches his chin in concentration. “_Maybe_. If we increase the power and can come alongside, extend our warp field…” He does some quick calculations. “No, that won’t work, but—” He snaps his fingers. “You know what? Extend the warp field and shields around them, I can maybe get a transporter lock after all.”  
  
“Tess?”  
  
“Whew. Ask no small favors, eh, Captain?” She types a couple commands. “Ready on my end. Park?”  
  
“I’ll have them in two minutes; this field stress is not doing us any favors.”  
  
“Esplin, open a channel to the _Verda_ if you can.”  
  
“We’re sending but I couldn’t begin to tell you if they’re receiving.”  
  
I switch to _Bajor’la_. “Colonel Shad, this is Colonel Kanril Eleya of the Federation Spacecraft _Bajor_. We’re going to attempt to rescue you from your ship by matter transporter. Out.”  
  
“I’ll be ready in thirty seconds, El,” Gaarra says.  
  
I nod and press my intercom key. “Lieutenant Gantumur, Lieutenant Connor to the command deck transporter room, please.” I grab my gun belt from behind my chair and put it on, then jog to the back door to head for the transporter room.  
  
“Ready for transport,” Transporter Officer Wohtan Korbuhlo tells me as I walk in with the two blonde humans.  
  
“Energize!”  
  
A flash of blue light erupts from the transporter pad and seven humanoid outlines start to fade in, but then there’s an electronic screech and Korbuhlo frantically scrambles across his console. “What’s the fuck is happening!?” Connor yells at him.  
  
“I’m losing the signal in the field flux, trying to compensate!” One of the humanoid outlines suddenly loses coherence and collapses to the deck as a pile of pinkish goo, but the others begin to solidify amid the showers of blue-white sparklies. “I lost one!”  
  
“Damn it,” Gantumur mutters.  
  
The sparks finally start to fade. The first thing to become clearly visible on the leader is the red uniform of a senior unrestricted line officer, then a dark brown bob cut on a face that clearly hasn’t seen any sun in a _long_ while. “Transport completed, ma’am.”  
  
“What is this?” the woman in the lead, probably Colonel Shad from the full-orb on her collar, demands. “Who are you? _Ahel Bajor’eta!_”  
  
“Colonel Shad Yima?”  
  
Her expression goes from astonished to indignant. “You will address me with the proper respect, _Ke’lora_!” she snarls.  
  
“Hey!” Connor snaps. “Back off, bi—”  
  
“Lieutenant! Stand down!” I order in Fed Standard, holding up a hand at her without taking my eyes off of Shad. I take a breath and introduce myself in _Bajor’la_. “Colonel Shad, I’m Colonel Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starfleet.”  
  
“The _Federation_? Godless…”  
  
“Clearly she hasn’t met my mother,” Gantumur whispers, sparking a snort from Connor.  
  
“Per the Deneb Accord on Conduct of Interstellar Travel we responded to your distress call and did what we could to mount a rescue. I’m sorry about your—”  
  
“Never mind that. You claim the rank of colonel of a spacecraft as _Ke’lora_. Kendra _shak’tet_,” she spits.  
  
She’s not even listening. Prophets, casteist _and_ racist, what fun. “Colonel Shad, this is going to sound like a strange question but what year do you think this is?”  
  
“‘_Think_ this is’?” Now she gives me an apprehensive look. “It’s Seventh Era 815, the Year of Venomous Scribes.”  
  
I squeeze my eyes shut. Worse than I thought. “Actually it’s 956, the Year of Distant Travails.”  
  


* * *

  
Warragul stands beside Colonel Shad, running the hand probe of a medical tricorder over a 162 centimeter frame stripped to her undershirt. “What can a human possibly know about Bajoran health?” she mutters under her breath.  
  
“Respectfully, ma’am,” he answers, “I wouldn’t be much good as chief medical officer on a ship named after your home planet if I didn’t. There are one hundred forty-seven Bajorans aboard, and the only major physiological differences between you and a female of my species are some uterine quirks. Now, Bolians,” he adds in a thoughtful tone, “those are a real challenge.”  
  
“Hmph. And are you a godly man, Doctor Wirrpanda?”  
  
“Godly? Well, I’m no Julian Bashir but I like to think I’m a gun surgeon.”  
  
I can’t quite tell from the observation area but it looks like Colonel Shad is confused by him deliberately misunderstanding her question. And probably his slang as well: I make a mental note to have Esplin adjust the idiom filters because “gun surgeon” isn’t even one _I_ know.  
  
“What was all that nonsense about ‘_clora_’ she was shouting, Captain?” Tess asks me. “I was listening on the intercom.”  
  
“‘_Ke’lora_’,” I correct her pronunciation. “Bajor used to have a caste system, the _D’jarra_. My family, actually most of the town where I grew up, are supposed to be laborers and tradesmen,” and I drop air-quotes on the ‘supposed to be’ part. I nod in Shad’s direction as Warragul draws some blood from her arm. “She’s I think _Va’telo_, the spacers and sailors, next rung up the ladder.”  
  
“More stuff from temple school?”  
  
“Ship’s library.” Off her look, “What? I had to refresh my memory. It’s twenty years since I studied any of this, and _phekk_, now I feel old. Thanks, Tess!”  
  
She laughs. “You’re welcome, ma’am. Warragul wants us.” I open the door and step into the room.  
  
“Feeling better?” Shad glares at me. “Look, whatever you think you know about me, forget it. A lot has happened.”  
  
“Yes, I’m told Bajor has actually _joined_ the Federation.”  
  
“We’ve joined the Federation but we haven’t given up our identity, ma’am,” Corpsman Anaala Pudos tells her from a lab console.  
  
Shad’s nose wrinkles. “You say that, _Ke’lora_, and yet you serve under one who defied her ordained station in life.”  
  
“Hey.” I grab the front of her tunic and get in her face. “Your beef is with me, Colonel; leave my crew out of it.”  
  
“You afraid I might convince them?”  
  
“No, I’m afraid one of them might break a foot off in your ass, rank or no rank.”  
  
I hold her stare until she looks away and tries to change the subject. “That’s quite a scar. Work accident?”  
  
“Battle wound,” Tess answers. “Captain’s a mustang, transferred from the Militia Space Arm. Got that in a boarding action.”  
  
“Perhaps it was Their way of telling you—”  
  
“I think the Prophets know better than you do what my station in life is, Colonel,” I snap. “The Cardassians were using the _D’jarra_ to control us during the Occupation. Kai Opaka abolished it in the Year of Nine Sorrows so we’d fight _them_ instead. And, oh by the way, that’s all in the Ohalu Prophecies: ‘the _D’jarra_ will end with the coming of the grey warriors’, Ohalu 57:12.” I normally find it annoying when people quote scripture at me but let’s just say this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this load of bull.  
  
“But you’re not under occupation now.”  
  
I snort, remembering the protests against the anti-Undine raids in March; there’s still an active civil rights case in sector court. “Some of us might argue with that. Just because I wear their uniform doesn’t mean I agree with everything Earth does, not by a long shot.”  
  
She makes a noncommittal grunt and hops down from the hospital bed. “Where are the rest of my people?”  
  
“Corpsman Watkins is finishing with Gunnery Sergeant Inalo through there,” Warragul answers, pointing at the next room over. “We took the rest up to Ten Forward for some chow.”  
  


* * *

  
“So how is it we didn’t have to explain the Federation to them?” Biri asks me as we watch the six survivors of the _Verda_. They’re huddled sullenly around a table eating replicated hasperat and deka tea, glaring at their Andorian minder from Security and the ten or so Bajorans from my own crew in service blacks or greys elsewhere in the lounge.  
  
I swallow my own bite of hasperat and wash it down with a swig of Romulan ale as Biri explains. “The date she gave, 815 of the Seventh Era, that’s 2271 according to the computer. About a year after USS _Enterprise_ ran across a convoy headed to the colony on Pillagra.”  
  
“Kirk again? Really?” Gaarra chuckles. “Guy really got around.”  
  
“Mmm, in more ways than one.” I hide a smile behind my glass of ale.  
  
“What are you saying, ma’am?” Lieutenant Gantumur asks from next to us at the bar.  
  
“Well, let’s say Dr. McCoy’s the reason there’s a cure for banta fever.”  
  
Gaarra sprays a mouthful of cola out his nose and nearly falls over laughing. “_Thanks_, Commander!” Nalak Lang grumbles at him, picking up a rag and throwing it at him.  
  
“I’m… missing something funny,” Biri says, looking from him to me. “Wait, is banta fever—”  
  
“An STD? Yes, it is.”  
  
My combadge chirps as Biri valiantly fails to stifle her giggles. “Kanril.”  
  
“_It’s Tess. Master Chief Wiggin and I have found something; we need you on the bridge._”  
  
“Be there in two. Lang, sober pill.” The old Cardassian tosses me a foil packet, and I give Gaarra a quick peck on the lips as I go by; he brushes my cheek scar with his hand.  
  
As I reach the door I glance back at the Militiamens’ table. Colonel Shad’s executive officer is staring at me with an interesting shade of purple on his face.  
  
Oh yeah. Gaarra’s technically _Mi’tino_, higher caste than either of us. How ‘bout that?  
  


* * *

  
“Whatcha got?”  
  
Wiggin points at an image of the _Verda_, higher resolution than the last time. “This is just a simulation, Captain; the ship’s structural integrity field gave out fifteen minutes ago. The _Verda_ was a _Karaya_-class patrol boat. Nothing fancy: capable of warp 4.3, basic nav deflector, but she carried a pair of five-kilo coilguns fore and aft.”  
  
“Right, I know; we bought energy weapons tech from the Ferengi later. So?”  
  
“So I managed to get a good composite scan and piece together enough data. She was hit hard by a far more capable ship; my guess is they fled into the black hole’s gravity well to escape pursuit and couldn’t climb back out.”  
  
“That jibes with what Colonel Shad said when I interviewed her,” Tess agrees.  
  
“Yes, and what she said in her distress signal. So?”  
  
“So, _this_.” He highlights two sections of the scan and blows them up on splitscreen. “One, whoever hit them was using class-3 disruptors.”  
  
I may not be a scientist, but I know weapons. That means Breen, Klingon, or Romulan, in that order given our location in the Alpha Quadrant. “What else?”  
  
“It looks like they were able to return fire: there’s at least four rounds missing from the chase magazine.”  
  
“Okay, so… Oh.” I slap my combadge. “Kanril to Lieutenant Gantumur.”  
  
“_Ma’am?_”  
  
“Put Colonel Shad on for me.”  
  
“_Wait one._”  
  
“_This is Colonel Shad._”  
  
“Colonel Shad, you were attacked by an alien ship, right?” Because of course we use the same word for “foreigner” as for “not biologically Bajoran”. That should’ve been an easy one, I’m slipping.  
  
“_Unprovoked,_” she confirms. “_They refused our offer to surrender, called us ‘honorless cowards’, and pursued us into the anomaly._”  
  
“Do you think you hit them at all?”  
  
There’s a muffled exchange back and forth in _Bajor’ara_ between her and another of the women. “_Gunny Inalo believes she landed a solid hit on their starboard nacelle; that’s why we were able to get away long enough to lose them._”  
  
“Get up here. Please,” I add after a moment. “Lieutenant Park, hard about and take us back to the black hole. Tess, sound battle stations, just in case the Klingons are still in a bad mood.”  
  
“Klingons, ma’am?” she queries as she hits the combat alert siren.  
  
“You know anybody else who talks like that?” I point out. “Even Romulans will _accept_ a surrender even if they don’t usually ask for it.” Tess grunts noncommittally. “Ensign, apprise Starfleet Command of our intentions, and cee-cee the Klingon embassy and Temporal Investigations.”  
  
“Comms, aye,” Esplin confirms.  
  
Gaarra, Shad, and Security Officer th’Shraak join us on the bridge as the black hole comes into view. That feeling of _wrongness_ comes back as the accretion disc looms over us. “Master Chief, prepare an antiproton sweep.”  
  
“No need, Captain. I have a D7D _Akif_-class battlecruiser off our starboard bow low, quarter a light-minute and closing. Looks like they were lying doggo in the accretion disk. I have a visual, compensating for redshift.”  
  
The cruiser’s a little further in the accretion disk, its hull sparkling as the SIF strains under the gravitational well. Colonel Shad hisses. “That’s the alien warship. I’d know it anywhere.”  
  
I nod at that. “I figured as much. Esplin, open a hailing channel.”  
  
“Just let me counter for the redshift…” The screen goes white for a moment, then shows a grainy picture of a Klingon warship’s bridge—old-fashioned, with a more open design than the more recent raptors and birds-of-prey. The captain is a youngish man with a crisp goatee and more forehead corrugations than a tin roof.  
  
“Klingon warship, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship _Bajor_. I am requesting that you power down your weapons and cease hostilities, in preparation for rescue.”  
  
The Klingon laughs roughly. “_HA! Finally the Federation sends a fresh opponent! Let us hope that your women are better fighters than your feeble Captain Kirk, for THIS time, Krell, son of Mok’tar, shall show no mercy!_”  
  
“Um, who are you?” Probably not the most diplomatic option, but I’m genuinely confused; I’ve never heard of this guy before, and he acts like I should know him.  
  
The man sneers. “_You do not know of the mighty Krell, son of Mok’tar, Conqueror of Neural, warrior of the Klingon Empire? Then I will teach you!_”  
  
I roll my eyes. “Bring it, _targh puqloD_. If you’ve got that much of a death wish.” He can’t possibly be _that_ stupid, but maybe I can—  
  
Krell, son of Mok’tar, Conqueror of somewhere I really don’t care about, splutters with rage and turns to his gunner. “_OPEN FIRE! Burn them into ashes!_”  
  
Oh, he _is_ that stupid.  
  
“Forward shields down one half of one percent and regenerating,” Gaarra reports in a bored tone a moment later, loud enough the Klingons can hear it.  
  
Krell’s sneer slowly melts into something more like impotent rage as he processes that we’re just sitting here unharmed. “_You… Korlok! I said BURN THEM INTO ASHES, damn you!_” Another Klingon protests something about maximum power and he can’t explain it.  
  
I look up from inspecting my nails and look behind him to the bridge crew, shifting into _tlhIngan Hol_. “Whichever of you is the first officer, your captain’s mindless bloodlust has gotten you all time-dilated almost a hundred forty years into your future. Your ship was the equal of the _Constitution_-class heavy cruiser; this ship was launched _last year_ and fulfills the tactical role of the _Federation_-class dreadnought. There is no chance of you doing anything but waste my time. Was it not _qeylIs ta’_ himself who said, ‘Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat’?”  
  
The alleged conqueror of some planet with a stupid name punches the console in front of him with rage, sending up a shower of sparks. “_Damn you, Federation bitch! How _dare_ you steal the words of Kahless! I will cut your sister’s heart out with a _baghneQ_! I will spit upon the corpse of your father as I slit your mother’s throat over the graves of your ancestors!_”  
  
OK, that’s it. _Nobody_ threatens my family. “Tess?”  
  
“Steady, Captain,” she murmurs as the Klingons fire again and I start to bark the order that I’ve given so often for three years straight. The order I’ve always delivered decisively and with conviction.  
  
The order to kill.  
  
“You said it yourself, they’re no threat.”  
  
Kill.  
  
Kill.  
  
But the order won’t come.  
  
Wait. _Phekk_ me, Krell’s from 140 years in the past. He doesn’t know who my family even is, probably barely even knows what my _species_ is.  
  
So why in the Prophets’ unknowable names do I want him dead so bad?  
  
Duty, or bloodlust?  
  
I glance at Colonel Shad, looking worried as the Klingons pound ineffectually on the shields. They fly by and Park turns hard about.  
  
_Sher hahr kosst._ I’m as bad as _she_ is. As bad as _them_.  
  
No. No. I refuse. I won’t be that person. “Tess, hold your fire.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Esplin, give me the comms again.” She waves me on. “Captain Krell, this is Captain Kanril. Are you finished yet? Because if you keep that up you’re just going overstress your SIF and the black hole will do the rest.”  
  
“_Korlok! Divert engine power to disruptors! Wait, what are you—Get back to your station!_”  
  
“Captain,” Wiggin announces, “reading a shift in the enemy ship, they’re powering down weapons, maintaining course away from the black hole.”  
  
A new voice comes in on the channel. “_Krell, son of Mok’tar, as first officer I, Korlok, son of Yonko, stand for the crew, and I say that you are unfit to serve as captain. You have put this ship at foolish risk, and I challenge you for command!_”  
  
“We’re gonna need popcorn,” Biri remarks. I turn to stare at her incredulously. “What?”  
  
I start to say something I’m sure was going to be deep and profound, but my combadge chirps before I can get the words out. “Kanril here.”  
  
“_Ma’am, this is Lieutenant Gantumur. I’m in the officers’ gym with Lieutenant Connor and Major Hano from the _Verda_. You said to tell you immediately if one of our guests stepped into the ring with Lieutenant Connor?_”  
  
Oh no. “What happened, Lieutenant?” I turn to Shad. “Major Hano’s your XO, right?” She nods.  
  
“_Major Hano said some disrespectful things about you after you and Commander Reshek left, Captain, and Connor took offense. Should I let it play or pull her out?_”  
  
“Stop them. Now. And tell Connor the order comes from me.” Having one of our guests turn up with a broken spine will mean way too many interesting questions.  
  
“_Assault Chief, aye._”  
  
I turn to Tess, shaking my head. “It never goes smooth. Why doesn’t it ever go smooth?”  
  
She snorts. “Milk run, my blue behind.”  
  
“Well, I see that much at least hasn’t changed.” I glance at Shad. “Well, what was it that General Vasa Lakrem said? ‘No plan ever survives deployment.’”  
  
“We have a saying like that, on Earth, too, ma’am,” Lieutenant Park says as I crack up.  
  


* * *

  
The running lights of Deep Space 9 glitter in the distance as we drop out of warp six days later, and Captain Kurland greets us over comm as we enter the holding pattern. “_An agent from the Department of Temporal Investigations will be meeting you dockside, Colonel Shad, and we have a team ready to assist you and your people any way you need._”  
  
“How about a time machine so I can go back to when the world made sense,” she mutters next to me.  
  
“_Sorry, Colonel, I didn’t catch that; you have to look at the screen when you’re talking._”  
  
“It’s all right, Captain Kurland,” I tell him, “it wasn’t important. If you’re free, you want to grab dinner at the Klingon restaurant later?”  
  
“_Bring Commander Reshek along, we’ll make it a double-date with my girlfriend._”  
  
I stare at him. “Prophets, does the whole damn _service_ know about us?”  
  
He laughs. “_We’ll have an opening for you to dock in an hour five._”  
  
“I’ll see you there. _Bajor_ out.” The image winks out, leaving the spokes of the station visible in the background. Colonel Shad turns to look at me questioningly. “Yes?”  
  
“I don’t get you, Colonel Kanril. The Klingons threaten you, your crew, your family, and you rescue them and go out and eat at a Klingon restaurant?”  
  
“They’re not all like that. Kaga, the owner? Overgrown hara kitten, the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet.”  
  
“I guess all _Ke’lora_ aren’t the same, either. You handle your ship like a born _Va’telo_.”  
  
From her, I guess that passes for a compliment. “Listen, Shad? If life under the Cardassians taught us anything, it’s that we each have a role in protecting our freedom, and you can’t begin to guess it by what you’re born to. It’s a new world, a new galaxy, and the Prophets will find you a place in it.”  
  
“That’s easy for you to say,” she mutters bitterly. I raise an eyebrow. “Kanril, I am over a century out of my time. I had a husband, two sons and a daughter; my whole family is dead!”  
  
“Actually, that’s not quite correct.” I pick up a PADD and pass it to her. “I took the liberty of having my security chief Lieutenant Korekh check your genetics against our databases. You have at least 37 living descendants, including three heroes of the Resistance, and a very important great-great-grandson: Shad Ona, Militia Surface Arm Field Colonel, retired, First Minister of Bajor from 2388 to 2392, and now Federation Secretary of the Exterior.” I fight back a grin as her mouth gapes open. “And there’s always going to be a call for starship crew. Just let me give you some advice?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“You ever use the phrase ‘Kendra _shak’tet_’ again and I’ll throw you out the airlock.”  
  
She actually laughs. “Fair enough.”  
  
I reach for my PADD. “Did you catch all that, Captain Korlok?” We’ve got his D-7 under tow; he didn’t trust us enough to send over a repair crew but he did let us send the medics.  
  
“_I did, _qanrIl HoD_. It will be a pleasure to see the First City again; this voyage has been long enough._”  
  
I look at his face on the image on my PADD. Krell did a number on him before Korlok took him out; Warragul grew him a new eyeball but he insisted on keeping the scars.  
  
Funny, one of them goes right across his left cheek.


	23. All of My Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is another short vignette I wrote for [ULC 23: "Battle Scars"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1214822/unofficial-literary-challenge-23-battle-scars). This one's pretty straightforward, but as a side note, I wrote this a couple months after getting to see Halestorm in concert. They are absolutely awesome as a live band.

**All of My Scars**

>   
I stare at the girl in the mirror  
_T-shirt, torn up jeans, no beauty queen_  
_But the way that you see me_  
_You get underneath me_  
_And all my defenses just fall away_  
_Fall away_
> 
> _I am beautiful with you_   
_Even in the darkest part of me_   
_I am beautiful with you_   
_Make it feel the way it’s supposed to be_   
_You’re here with me_   
_You show me this and I believe_   
_I am beautiful with you_
> 
> _I stand naked before you now_   
_No walls to hide behind_   
_So here am I_   
_See all of my scars_   
_Still here you are_   
_I bare my soul and I’m not afraid_   
_Not afraid_
> 
> _I am beautiful with you_   
_Even in the darkest part of me_   
_I am beautiful with you_   
_Make it feel the way it’s supposed to be_   
_You’re here with me_   
_You show me this and I believe_   
_I am beautiful with you_
> 
> _I’ve been the strong one for so long_   
_But I was wrong_   
_It doesn’t make you weak if you’re needing someone_   
_I’m not holding back and I know what I want_
> 
> _I am beautiful with you_   
_I am beautiful with you_   
_You want me for myself_   
_You look at me like no one else_   
_I am beautiful with you_
> 
> _I am beautiful with you_   
_Even in the darkest part of me_   
_I am beautiful with you_   
_Make it feel the way it’s supposed to be_   
_You’re here with me_   
_You show me this and I believe_   
_I am beautiful with you_   
[— “Beautiful With You” by Halestorm](http://youtube.com/watch?v=BhOt8hvQ3-8)

  
The scars stare me in the face every time I look in a mirror, every time I picture myself. Two messily stitched gashes across my left cheek, a ropy mass of spiderwebbed tissue on the right side of my belly from where the Orion tried to gut me.  
  
Easy enough to remove them, just an outpatient visit to Warragul in sickbay. Half an hour with a dermal regenerator and I could wear a bikini again.  
  
But you can’t get rid of the memories. Can’t get back the innocence you lost from taking your first life. They stare me in the face every day, starting with a bald green-skinned man who probably wasn’t any older than myself. He comes at my barricade in Gunnery Two with a rifle leveled. I squeeze the trigger. The phaser squeals and he goes down in a silent heap.  
  
Next one splashes my green-and-gray with crimson from Lance Corporal Talhat before I can burn him down.  
  
“What about this one?” Gaarra asks beside me in the bed, stroking a ragged scratch along my ribcage below my breast.  
  
Gamma Hromi. Klingon emerges from the shadows swinging a bat’leth and cuts down Petty Officer Belknap before I can shout a warning, catches me on the backswing but the armorweave stops most of it. I throw aside my rifle and grab for my sidearm; he knocks it away and bellows something about my mother, raising the blade high as I yank the bayonet from my belt. Overhead chop, showy but impractical. I step inside, slash his wrist, and bright arterial blood sprays across my face. Matte black ceramisteel buries itself in the roaring Klingon’s chest as his sword rings against the concrete sidewalk.  
  
Belknap bleeds out before the medic arrives.  
  
“I’ll tell you mine, you tell me yours,” I tell Gaarra, rubbing the bare skin on his thigh, feeling a lump there.  
  
“ATV crash when I was fifteen.”  
  
“Compound?”  
  
“No, ripped it open hitting a log. Nalwood went right through my chaps.” The bristles of his beard tickle against my shoulder. “This one?”  
  
Kobali Prime. Vaad sniper saw a high-ranking target. Lucky me, I spotted her on my GUNGNIR hardsuit’s IR and she only grazed me. Unlucky her, I keep my DMR set way higher than standard. Didn’t even hit her, couldn’t with that burn on my arm, but the tree bole she took cover behind was enough. Just an orange flash, a thunderclap of superheated sap exploding.  
  
Sightless dark eyes staring up at me from a young woman's face, as young as my sister when I graduated the Academy. Too young to be impaled on a wood splinter as big around as my arm.  
  
I tap a mark on his wrist. “Guy at the machine shop teaching me to weld.” I wince. “And this one?” He leans away and rubs my ankle.  
  
“Stepped in a hara cat burrow in boot camp.”  
  
“Really? A hara cat?”  
  
“Hey, I’ll have you know that hurt like hell!” He laughs, and I laugh with him. “Phekk’ta hara cat…”  
  
He leans over me and kisses the scar on my cheek. I lean my head back and kiss his mouth in return, then stroke the burn over his eye. That one I know. Graze from a disruptor bolt during the Badlands mission.  
  
I rub his back as he kisses above my nose and feel the other scars there. Messy web of gashes and burns. Schrodinger’s Butterfly, when he saved a woman’s life and nearly lost his.  
  
I inhale deeply of him, tasting the spicemint fragrance of his body wash and the fainter, earthy musk of his own skin. I accept him moving atop me, wrap my legs around him.  
  
Since I was seventeen all I’ve known is war. Never peace, just the gap between one fight and the next, a time to check your weapons, replace your armor, wait for the other shoe to drop.  
  
I can’t get rid of the past. It’s always with me. I think it always will be.  
  
But maybe we can make a different future.


	24. All's Fair in Love and War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one comes from [ULC 26: "Love and Loss"](http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1219946/unofficial-literary-challenge-26-love-and-loss>ULC%2026:).

**All’s Fair in Love and War**

> _Let me in your room_  
I’ve seen the rest of you  
But I know there’s something more in your room  
I’m right outside your door  
Show me things you've never shown before
> 
> A few pictures from your past  
And those walls you painted black  
And the secrets that you keep under your bed  
All you have to do is let me in your room
> 
> You can be yourself  
You don’t have to hide from me, I won’t tell  
I know everyone you’ve ever trusted let you down  
And you don’t wanna come out  
And show me, show me
> 
> A few pictures from your past  
And those walls you painted black  
And the secrets that you keep under your bed  
All you have to do is let me in your room
> 
> You know every part of me  
I let you in, I let you see  
All the dark and every color of my room  
Let me do that for you
> 
> And tell me all about your past  
Why you painted those walls black  
Baby it’s all right, you’re safe in here with me  
Open up so I can see
> 
> A few pictures from your past  
And those walls you painted black  
And the secrets that you keep under your bed  
An unopened letter from your dad  
A poster of your favorite band  
It don’t matter I’ll take every part of you  
All you have to do is let me in your room
> 
> Let me in your room  
[— “In Your Room” by Halestorm](https://youtu.be/xM3-bJObe5Q)

  
I hate my dress uniform.  
  
Yeah, it’s a cliche, but it’s true. Even though this conference just calls for service dress whites without all the braid and medals, just the ribbons, it’s a pain in the backside: they cut them for looks, not for comfort. And I’ve always felt like an outsider at these kinds of to-dos anyway. One good thing about being enlisted back in the day, I got to let the officers handle the formalities while us in the liberty party went out to raise hell.  
  
Still, I suppose the Odyssey style is better than what they had when I started: no necktie, for one thing. And at least it’s replicated so the stupid thing is the right size across the chest, not like my old Militia dress blues that never fit.  
  
“Our session is in fifteen minutes, Captain,” Tess warns me as we make our way through crowds of white, blue, and black.  
  
“Yeah, but I missed lunch.” I press my hand to my chest and bow my head as we pass a skull-capped Militia chaplain, but I’m not sure he noticed given he’s having what sounds like a merry theological argument with some Cardassian lady in gilt-hemmed robes. I guess it makes sense the Oralians would send at least one rep to a terrorism conference, but I don’t have the foggiest what they’re talking about.  
  
Oh, thank the Prophets, the buffet even has a bar next to it. “What’ll you have, Captain?”  
  
“Careful, El,” Tess comments as I grab some hors d’oeuvres I can’t identify off a platter. “Remember, you’re on in—”  
  
“I know. Just a synthale, thanks.”  
  
“Make that two,” Tess adds. The bright red spine-covered Bajoranoid behind the bar, I don’t recognize the species, pours two glasses of amber beer and strikes off the heads with the back of a knife, before passing them to us. Tess sips it experimentally and her antennae do a happy-dance. “You know, ma’am, they say never trust ale from a god-fearing people, but _damn_.”  
  
I snort and take a swallow. “Whoever said that never met a Kendavi monk. Trappist, neither: next time we’re near Sol I want to try this place in Vleteren, Belgium I’ve heard Peeters in Security talking about.”  
  
We just stand there for a little while people-watching, but then I spy two men coming through the crowd, talking animatedly. Gaarra’s got his arm around a graying-brown-haired Militia full-orb in dress blues, skinnier and older than him. He spots us and I wave him over. “Who’s your friend, Gaarra?”  
  
“Captain Kanril, allow me to introduce Colonel Reshek Tano, Fifth Colonial Rangers.”  
  
I shake his hand. Wow, strong grip, just like… “Reshek?” I glance at Gaarra. “As in…”  
  
He nods, smiling. “As in my father, yes, ma’am.”  
  
“I’ll wait for you in the meeting room,” Tess murmurs before disappearing into the crowd.  
  
“‘Ma’am’?” the colonel repeats, giving Gaarra a look. “Thought you Fleeties said ‘sir’.”  
  
I give him a cockeyed grin. “But Militiamen use ‘ma’am’.”  
  
“_Sen za ka?_” He looks impressed. “Gropo or blackie?”  
  
“Blacksider, NCO on RBS _Kira Nerys_ before they shut the fleet down. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir. Commander Reshek has told me a lot about you.”  
  
Colonel Reshek raises an eyebrow, looking amused. “You can drop the act, Captain, I know you two are married.” Off my look, “If nothing else, my eyes aren’t knotholes; I noticed the brass link in his earring. I just want to know”—he gives his son a look—“why wasn’t I invited?”  
  
“Yeah, sorry, Father, it, uh, was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Gaarra explains sheepishly.  
  
“You heard about Iconia?” I add.  
  
“Ah. But you are planning to have a proper ceremony at some point, right?”  
  
My combadge goes off before I can figure out how to answer that. Saved by the badge, heh. “Kanril.”  
  
“_Captain, conference room, _now_,_” Tess demands, singsong.  
  
“I’ll be there in a minute, dammit! Sorry, Colonel, that’s my XO. I’m supposed to be presenting at the panel on IEDs.”  
  
“All right, you’re off the hook for now, but I want to have dinner with my new daughter-in-law later. Maybe at this ‘Quark’s’ place I keep hearing about.”  
  
Now I’m the surprised one. “You’ve never been to Quark’s?”  
  
He shrugs. “I’ve been in the Gamma Quadrant my whole career. Never touched the deck when we went through the Celestial Temple.”  
  
“It’s a date then.”  
  


* * *

  
The IED panel was… interesting to say the least. Fair to say I was the only one there who’s had field experience on _both_ ends of the bloody things.  
  
“You looked like you were having a rough time up there, El,” Gaarra remarks as we make our way down the Promenade.  
  
“Excuse me,” I tell a pair of Klingons standing by Quark’s arguing about something.  
  
“Federation _taHqeq_,” one of them mutters.  
  
“Easy, El,” Gaarra whispers.  
  
“Relax,” I whisper back and draw myself up to my full height, fixing the braver one with my best NCO glare. One of the rare times I’m actually thankful I inherited my father’s outsized height. “You two boys want to meet in the ring later, I could use the workout,” I snarl at them in _tlhIngan Hol_. “Right now, I’ve got a dinner date, so why don’t you just take two steps to the left and we can all go about our evenings.”  
  
“Gurek,” the smaller one suddenly says, “that’s Kanril Eleya.”  
  
“You? You’re _HromIy veqlargh_?” Now his bravado is starting to falter.  
  
I raise an eyebrow at Gurek. The Devil of Hromi? That’s… almost flattering. “Apparently so.”  
  
Then he surprises me by laughing and offering his arm for me to clasp. “Tell the _verengan_ your first round is on Gurek, son of Kriton. You saved my life at Lae’nas III when you destroyed that Iconian cruiser.”  
  
“Uh, thanks.” Truth be told I have no idea which cruiser he’s talking about, but I won’t say no to a free drink. We head inside, and somebody yells “Dabo!” from the corner as I look around for Gaarra’s father.  
  
“There he is,” Gaarra says, pointing to a table in the corner where, sure enough, a man in blue is waving to us. We head over and he gives his father a one-armed hug before taking a the middle chair; the colonel sits across from me.  
  
A pretty blonde with an Ashallan accent and too little clothing comes over to us. “Hi, my name’s Veena and I’ll be your server tonight. What can I get you to drink?”  
  
“Romulan ale. For three?” Gaarra and the Colonel both nod. “And apparently Gurek, son of Kriton is buying,” I add.  
  
“How kind of him,” Colonel Reshek remarks as Veena moves off. “So I caught a bit of your panel while I was between meetings—”  
  
“Yeah, I think I saw you poke your head in.”  
  
“You really implemented Contingency Six on Gamma Hromi IV?”  
  
I take in a hissing breath and tighten my lips, pressing my palms to my eyes. “Due respect, sir. Gamma Hromi is _not_ something I ever wanted to have to relive.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“You ever serve in combat?”  
  
“Combat, sure: New Bajor’s had several run-ins with rogue Jems, not to mention a few with aliens you’ve probably never even heard of.”  
  
“And the True Way,” Gaarra adds.  
  
“That’s right, you told me when we first met your cousin was killed—”  
  
“—when they blew up the Di Nakora Shrine, yes,” the colonel finishes, bitterly. “Nothing like the wars back here in the Alpha Quadrant the past decade, but Ilasa didn’t deserve that.”  
  
I don’t answer. The True Way hate us even more than they hate the Federation or the Oralian Way: they blame us for breaking the State they worship. I guess they consider it poetic or something to use our own tactics against us. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I finally mutter.  
  
“Neither do I.”  
  
“Makes three of us,” Gaarra chimes in.  
  
Fortunately our drinks arrive then, and Hadron finally gets off his butt and puts the World Series game on the big screen. “_Kendra’tel ahara!_” I cheer as Vesin Kilros sends the first pitch of the game sailing clear past the right fielder’s mitt.  
  
“Hey!” the colonel says.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Thought this was the Hara Cats cheering section!”  
  
I look at Gaarra. “You didn’t tell him I was Kendran?” He shakes his head, grinning evilly. “Colonel, I went to _phekk’ta_ temple school with Vesin Kilros!”  
  
“Damn, _now_ I recognize your accent, Captain. You two are getting an annulment: I will _not_ have my grandchildren rooting for the Warriors!”  
  
Gaarra laughs as I spray a mouthful of ale across the table. “Yeah right, like I’d let her teach them bad habits like that.”  
  
I’m too busy coughing up a lung to respond.  
  
Grandchildren?  
  
Oh, hell.


	25. Mistletoe on Mirhassa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At year's end, USS _Bajor_ drops relief aid to the Romulan world of Mirhassa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was for a Christmas prompt, [ULC 18: "Winter Wonderland Celebrations II"](http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1208717/unofficial-literary-challenge-18-winter-wonderland-celebrations-ii).

**Mistletoe on Mirhassa**

> _Good King Wenceslas looked out_   
_On the feast of Stephen_   
_When the snow lay round about_   
_Deep and crisp and even_   
_Brightly shone the moon that night_   
_Though the frost was cruel_   
_When a poor man came in sight_   
_Gath’ring winter fuel_
> 
> _“Hither, page, and stand by me_   
_If thou know’st it, telling_   
_Yonder peasant, who is he?_   
_Where and what his dwelling?"_   
_“Sire, he lives a good league hence_   
_Underneath the mountain_   
_Right against the forest fence_   
_By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”_
> 
> _“Bring me flesh and bring me wine_   
_Bring me pine logs hither_   
_Thou and I will see him dine_   
_When we bear him thither.”_   
_Page and monarch forth they went_   
_Forth they went together_   
_Through the rude wind’s wild lament_   
_And the bitter weather_
> 
> _“Sire, the night is darker now_   
_And the wind blows stronger_   
_Fails my heart, I know not how,_   
_I can go no longer.”_   
_“Mark my footsteps, my good page_   
_Tread thou in them boldly_   
_Thou shalt find the winter’s rage_   
_Freeze thy blood less coldly.”_
> 
> _In his master’s steps he trod_   
_Where the snow lay dinted_   
_Heat was in the very sod_   
_Which the Saint had printed_   
_Therefore, Christian men, be sure_   
_Wealth or rank possessing_   
_Ye who now will bless the poor_   
_Shall yourselves find blessing_   
[— “Good King Wenceslas” (trad. Finnish tune, lyrics by John Mason Neale)](https://youtu.be/p3pcIKNttLU)

  
Four standard months after the end of the Iconian War, and the galaxy still bleeds. Twenty-eight planets, mostly alien worlds conquered long ago, have seceded from the Klingon Empire because the KDF can’t hold them, and the Gorn Separatists we—_I_—armed during the last war defend a third of the Hegemony against King Slathis and his Klingon backers. Eight billion people are still living in refugee camps despite the Federation and the Republic throwing everything they can spare at the problem, even what few of the ancient _Constitution_-, _Constellation_-, and _Miranda_-class ships were spared from the breaker yards. The True Way are still killing fellow Cardassians every day. And the Tzenkethi, who stayed out of the war, invaded the Ferengi last week and captured three rimward planets before the Commerce Authority could mount a response.  
  
The Galactic Alliance we forged to beat the Iconians is falling apart.  
  
We save who we can. Even with half of Starfleet dead, there’s still things we can do. BuPers hasn’t slowed or stopped our recruitment drives, only changed the message from war to compassion; we’ve got more recruits coming out of enlisted training and the SROTC colleges than we know what to do with. _Bajor_ is double-staffed and packed so full of medical supplies and industrial replicators you can’t hardly squeeze through half the decks; Gaarra’s been working overtime. Doesn’t do much for our maneuverability, but then a four-and-a-half megaton starship can hardly turn on a coin anyway.  
  
No, I wasn’t exaggerating about how overloaded we are; a Jelna E-2 from Maintenance is forced to stand stiffly against the wall as Warragul, Lieutenant Park and I push past him in a corridor filled halfway to the ceiling with pallets of MREs. “Refresh my memory, Lieutenant. How many more planets before we RTB?”  
  
“Seven, ma’am,” Park promptly supplies. “Three Federation, two Rom Imp, one Republic, and one indie.”  
  
“And Mirhassa’s our next stop?” He nods and I refresh my memory. Imperial borderworld across the Neutral Zone from Calder. Close on two centuries ago the Senate exiled part of Ship-Clan Kaveth there. They made the best of it, turned themselves into a smuggling powerhouse: sent textiles of all things back to the homeworlds, and before the supernova half the Romulan ale that made it across the RNZ came from Mirhassa. They used the money to continue being a thorn in the police state’s side, up to and including backing the Free Rihannsu uprising in 2276.  
  
More to the point, the Kavethssu had the only remaining shipyard in the Star Empire that could build and service their biggest warbirds, which is probably why the Iconians hit them so hard. A week into the invasion, the Heralds and Elachi gated in and blew away the orbital forts before they could get their shields up, then glassed twenty major cities and started carrying off survivors. I just thank the Prophets General Ja’rod’s fleet was in the area.  
  
Thank the Prophets for Warragul, too. “I’ll be ready to—mmf, sorry,” he stifles a yawn. “I’ll have my team ready when we get there.”  
  
I shake my head. “You’ve done way more than your share already, Doc.”  
  
“Too much to do, Cap’n.”  
  
I stop suddenly and turn on him. “Listen to yourself. You’re no good to me like this.”  
  
“You didn’t even notice we’ve been leading you to your quarters,” Park adds, flipping a thumb at a door with his name above the controls.  
  
“My—” He sees the door and swears. “Cap’n, I had a Romulan physio seminar to host for the aid workers.”  
  
“You’re delegating it to Dr. Maela. That’s an order, Lieutenant. We’re ten hours out, and if I see you outside this door for the next nine of them, _you’re_ going to need a doctor.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“_Good night, Doctor,_” I tell him with finality, grabbing him by the sleeve and shoving him into his quarters.  
  
More problems continue to crop up the closer we get to our des, up to and including a fight in Ten Forward. I find out later it started with new meat in Logistics versus an off-duty Andorian E-4 from Security, but I don’t much care who started it, just that they won’t answer my orders, as Lieutenant Gantumur, Dul’krah and I wade in. Nobody trashes _my_ bar.  
  
Except maybe me, given I just threw some Bajoran I don’t recognize right into the food replicator. The display shatters and goes dark as I turn to some human coming at me with a bottle. He seems to recognize my rank and the white shoulders of my service blacks and tries to backpedal in the split second before my boot catches him in the family jewels. Yank him by the ponytail into my knee and he goes down the rest of the way, howling.  
  
I rotate and catch a Bolian Gantumur’s fighting in a choke-hold. Don’t break the skin, you’ll get acid burns. “Gantumur! Get one of your clowns up here with a phaser!”  
  
“Waiting for permission, sir!” She spins and flips her arm and a Type-1 holdout gun appears in her hand. “Korekh! Lang!” she bellows over the din as she flicks it over to wide-beam. The big Pe’khdar throws a human into the bar head-first and dives out the door just before Gantumur fires.  
  
In the sudden silence Nalak Lang pokes his head back out from behind the bar. “Took you long enough, Captain.”  
  
And naturally _that’s_ when the rest of the security team finally manages to show up. “What the _phekk_ kept you, Chief?!”  
  
“Lift got blocked by a pile of barrels that fell across the corridor, ma’am! Had to take the Jefferies tube!”  
  
I open my mouth, then close it and take a deep breath. “Lang, fix me a drink, don’t care what, just make it sixty proof or better.”  
  
“After that fracas I think I’ll join you,” the old Cardassian answers.  
  


* * *

  
On reflection, I think the only thing I hate more than writing condolence letters is disciplinary actions, but Starfleet can’t have that kind of behavior; I don’t give a flying _phekk_ what it was about. By the time we pull into orbit over Mirhassa, three of my crew are in the brig awaiting transfer to JAG Corps for court-martial and probable BCD, and I hit eleven more with a captain’s mast. And now I’m wishing I’d followed my own orders to Warragul, because I’m yawning when Commander Revarek tr’Kaveth, the clan chief and planetary governor, appears on the screen. Not bad-looking if you’re into older men: silver hair, big brown eyes, but knowing Vulcanoids he probably predates the Occupation by half a century. “Aefvadh_, Captain Kanril. We were somewhat confused when you appeared on our long-range scanners._”  
  
“Huh? Oh, the transponder.” He nods. “Well, all these reports of pirates hitting aid shipments. Can’t have that.”  
  
He catches on and laughs. “_So you pretended to be a Yridian freighter. Two hlai-vnau, one arrow._”  
  
I grin at him. “Well, there’s no way they’d attack a _Galaxy_-class starship _on purpose_.”  
  
“_I approve, Captain; most Rihan of you._”  
  
I accept the compliment without comment; I’ve already filed a commendation for the petty officer in Engineering who came up with it, and for COB Kinlo for handling the ECM aspects. Really old trick, of course: we used it in the Militia all the time and Starfleet’s done it, too; I just never heard of anybody managing it with a ship this big before. “Gaarra, you ready to start offloading?”  
  
He nods. “Got more than a few requests to go dirtside on liberty, El,” he adds as he sends the orders along.  
  
“I might join them,” I answer. “You don’t mind, do you, Commander tr’Kaveth?”  
  
“_We will consider your crew our honored guests._” I nod appreciatively. The Kavethssu are old-school, true believers in their _mnhei’sahe_ codes. Proper courtesy and hospitality is a must.  
  
I finally manage to take advantage (after grabbing a few hours of sleep) when tr’Kaveth invites Gaarra and I to breakfast the next morning. His manor house is on an estate in the country and on first look it seems to have escaped damage in the attacks. From the air, though, you can see the burned-out forest nearby, craters in the lawn, even the wreck of a crashed Elachi frigate a large crew of workers is cutting apart for scrap. “The thrice-damned Heralds hit us as hard here as anywhere. Destroyed our air defenses so that the Elachi…” He swallows and his eyes take on a pained look as he pours a mug of tea. “I lost fifteen of my staff, and my eldest, my heir.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Gaarra says to my left. I can’t open my mouth to say anything. Number of friends and even family the Iconian War cost me…  
  
Tr’Kaveth’s mouth tightens into a grim, humorless smile. “I got him, though, did you see? I killed the ship that killed my daughter. Packed our flitter with mining explosives and ran it into the motherless—” He stops and coughs. “Ah, _fvadt_.”  
  
“Elachi spores?” I ask.  
  
“They are a _plague_, like those orks in an Earth legend I read once. Pass my thanks to your _Enriov_ Quinn for the shipment of medicines.”  
  
I smile and take a sip of tea, then wince at the bitter taste and grab for the sugar. Before I can finish my mug, though, my combadge chimes. I apologize and stand. “Never fails, Commander.”  
  
“Duty calls, I understand.”  
  
“Thank you for breakfast.” I step off the porch and duck behind a corner of the house. “Kanril, go.”  
  
“_Captain, this is Lieutenant Korekh. I am attempting to confiscate a rather large piece of contraband._”  
  
I raise an eyebrow at that. “You know Imperial ale is legal now, right?”  
  
“_Not ale. I suggest you beam directly to the unloading area._”  
  
I rematerialize a few moments later with an electric tingle in the midst of forklifts and gravtrucks parceling out a big pile of our precious cargo. I hear yelling and turn to see Dul’krah and Lieutenant Kate McMillan arguing over… “A tree? _That’s_ the contraband you called me away from bacon and biscuits for?”  
  
The big alien starts, “Starfleet regulations clearly state—”  
  
“—that exceptions can be made for, and I quote, ‘objects of religious or cultural importance’! Sir!” McMillan adds after a moment.  
  
“_Lieutenant,_” I growl warningly and the redhead subsides. I’m starting to wonder if I’m being a bad influence on my crew if they’re mouthing off to their direct superiors, _my_ command staff.  
  
I eye the tree for a moment. Two meters tall, conifer of some kind, though with flatter needles I’m used to, and it’s been freshly cut. Something’s niggling at me but I—  
  
Oh, the date. December 22, Earth Standard Calendar. “This is supposed to be a Christmas tree, McMillan?”  
  
“Yes ma’am. I’m, uh, surprised you—”  
  
“Yes, of course I know about Christmas, Lieutenant: I dated a Lutheran at the Academy for over a year.” Well, technically Dalton hadn’t actually practiced since he was about ten, but it’s hard to avoid the biggest holiday of the year in that part of Earth anyway.  
  
“Well, I don’t actually believe in God, ma’am. Dad’s Reform Baptist, but Mom was raised Asatru and doesn’t believe in much of anything these days. Anyway, they split up when I was six; Christmas for me was pretty much an excuse to get them both in the same building as me for two hours.”  
  
“How’d you even find the tree?” Gaarra asks, coming up beside me.  
  
“Found a forester with good reviews on the local ‘net and made sure he’d take Fedcreds, sir. Even paid to replant.”  
  
Well, there’s that at least. “You know, we don’t have any big winter holidays back home,” I remark. “Or I guess they're summer holidays in Kendra’s hemisphere. Nothing religious anyway—we mostly hunker down and wait for the Day of Remembrance and Gratitude Festival in the spring.”  
  
“Closest thing we had in New Rakantha was the Landing Day parade to the memorial of the first colony,” Gaarra adds. “First time I ever saw anything like Christmas was a campus Yule celebration when I was at U of Alpha Centauri.”  
  
“So—”  
  
I smile. “Right, sorry, McMillan. Uh, was the plan to put it in your quarters? Because it seems a little big even for mine.”  
  
“Actually I had Ten Forward in mind, if that’s all right, ma’am.”  
  


* * *

  
I admit, I had my doubts. Getting it up to the ship wasn’t a problem: we just beamed the tree directly to the lounge. But we had to replicate a tree stand, ornaments, lights, the works. McMillan took charge of things and organized, got most of the officers and CPOs on the ship to replicate an ornament. I made a note of it in her file: always good to foster that.  
  
The tree is… well, what you’d expect. Looks a bit cluttered, tell the truth: the tree’s not quite big enough for 150-plus ornaments. But we put a big Federation insignia at the top and wrapped it up in lights, and I hung an ornament of the stars-and-spokes of Kendra Province to a lower branch. Even Commander tr’Kaveth came up for a peek before we left orbit, and we traded presents: a couple bottles of springwine and Kentucky rye from Lang’s stash for him, a case of ale for us.  
  
I pour my command crew drinks from the case as a couple of junior enlisted from Maintenance tidy up for the next chow call and get the food replicator working again. “To spouses and sweethearts,” Birail announces. I raise my glass and give Gaarra a significant glance.  
  
“Spouses and sweethearts,” they agree, and Gaarra wraps his arm around me. The ale burns going down. Good stuff.  
  
“May they never meet,” Warragul adds, grinning, and a mouthful of ale tries to go up my nose. I cough for a minute as Tess and Biri bust out laughing.  
  
“To absent friends,” I finally choke out. “The ones who aren’t here to see this.”  
  
Gaarra adds a toast of his own. “To peace. We’re alive, and we’re free.”  
  
“To the Clan of Clans, the Federation,” Dul’krah finishes, raising his glass aloft.  
  
“Ha! I’ll drink to that!” Tess chimes in. We all clash glasses in the air and drink.  
  
“All right!” Nalak Lang calls from the bar. “Who’s hungry? I have _hlai-hwy_ cutlets and vegetable soup.”  
  
The others head for the bar, but Gaarra and I stay by the viewport, looking at the reflection of the tree amid the stars as Mirhassa swivels out of view and _Bajor_ goes to warp. “Duty calls, eh?”  
  
“It’s what we signed up for, El.”  
  
“I know.” I smile up at him and he puts his arms around my waist. I lay my glass down on the window sill and turn to face him.  
  
“You know, love, there is one Christmas tradition I’m _very_ fond of,” he says after a moment, and nods at the ceiling above the viewport.  
  
I crane my neck. There’s a little cluster of green tacked to the ceiling with duct tape. “Mistletoe?”  
  
“Close enough.”  
  
Our lips meet in the light of the stars streaming past as our home travels quietly onward into the unknown.


	26. Brother on Brother, Daughter on Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The USS _Bajor_ is called back to the Delta Quadrant for a high-priority raid on a Borg installation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came from [ULC 27: "Extra Lives"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1221252/ulc-27-extra-lives-entry-thread) and follows on to A Voice in the Wilderness.
> 
> We're also introducing Rachel Connor to B&S in detail for the first time (at least in my stories). She originally came aboard for the unfinished tale about Operation Mockingbird.
> 
> New cast:
> 
>   * Lieutenant Alicia Westlake Gantumur, assault team commander: Keira Knightley
>   * Lieutenant Junior Grade K'lak, assault team sniper: Tony Todd
>   * MACO Unit 131:
>     * Lieutenant Rachel Connor, commanding officer: Michelle Rodriguez
>     * Special Warfare Operator First Class Jose Luiz, heavy weapons specialist: Emil Hostina
>     * Special Warfare Operator Second Class Aarno Kallio, sniper: Kari Ketonen
>     * Special Warfare Operator First Class Belka Saris, computer specialist: Bridget Regan

**Brother on Brother, Daughter on Mother**

  
_Benthan Sector, Delta Quadrant. 4 January 2411 Earth Standard._  
  
“Park, port one-three-zero, fifteen degree down! Tess!”  
  
“Locked and firing!” My blue friend hammers her trigger pad as Park yaws left and depresses the bow, and streams of light lance out from the dorsal and ventral phasers and finally batter down the Borg cube’s shields as the Benthan cruiser 150 klicks to starboard adds its fire.  
  
“Torpedoes!”  
  
“Firing, fore tube!” A volley of purple-glowing thunderbolts shriek from below the saucer and the cube’s transwarp drive detonates in a green fireball as we bank away.  
  
“_Bridge, Ordnance,_” the basso voice of Chief Culyn announces over speakers. “_Be advised, we are down to ten, repeat, one-zero, neutronic torpedoes. After that you’re stuck with quantums. Over._”  
  
Tess responds, “Don’t worry, Chief, I’ve kept count. We’ll have enough.”  
  
“Janacek, you still with me?” I radio.  
  
“I’m on your five o’clock low, Commodore!” the lieutenant commander on the _Brandenburg_ answers in an inset on the viewscreen as we vector for the next target. Once again it hits me, the brown-skinned human’s young, too young. I was four years older than her when I got my first command.  
  
_Phekk_, I’ve got no room to complain: I know how fast _I_ went from O-2 to O-6, and we lost so many trained officers in the Iconian War I’ll take all the help I can get. I’d rather not have given her _another_ promotion but Commander T’Kel’s _Laikan_ got caught between three probes on the way in, never stood a chance.  
  
“Form up your _Defiant_ wing and prepare to—”  
  
“Captain!” Master Chief Wiggin interrupts. “I’m picking up a disruption in subspace. Looks like a transwarp conduit, about to open its aperture into realspace.”  
  
“Esplin,” I say through gritted teeth, turning to the newly minted JG at comms, “I thought you said that particle… _thing_ of yours would block out any calls for reinforcements!”  
  
“It did, ma’am,” Wiggin quickly moves to defend the blueshirt. “This transwarp conduit is brand new: it’s not opening, it’s being _built_.”  
  
Wait, the Queen shouldn’t need to build any new conduits to one of her own bases, which means—oh, _phekk_. I key the comm. “All units, all units, this is Commodore Kanril. Take evasive action!”  
  
An enormous green glow blooms into existence from the black as our small force of Starfleet, Benthan, and Vaadwaur ships scatters. Behind us two cubes and a smattering of spheres burst from the new portal and immediately open fire on the other Borg ships.  
  
“_Please tell me they’re with your Cooperative, Kanril,_” Commander Darva transmits from the VSW _Revenge_.  
  
“Not likely,” I answer.  
  
The comms echo with a single voice repeated infinite times, deep, but definitely feminine. “_Surrender your vessels. Your cultural and biological distinctiveness are immaterial. You will be assimilated into the whole and perfected. I am the Borg. Resistance is futile._”  
  
“So One of One did make it out,” Biri remarks.  
  
“Sounds like,” I agree. “Good diversion, though. All units, form up and head for the objective, don’t let anything stop you. Connor, Gantumur, get your squads to the transporters. Full impulse, Lieutenant.”  
  
“Ma’am!” Stars wheel on the viewscreen and I have a brief sight of a tactical cube engaging One of One’s ships. Then a dirty brown planet with too few spots of blue and a huge splotch of dark gray swings into view. It’s amazing the planets the Borg will go for sometimes: to hear Biri tell it, this place is a proto-garden world where anaerobes have only halfway finished oxidizing the atmosphere. Next to impossible for there to be any native intelligent life.  
  
I spare a glance for the plot. One of One’s ships have outflanked the tactical cube, and naturally the Queen still somehow hasn’t learned how to split fire between multiple targets. Two spheres fire off a firestorm of superheated plasma from more weapons ports than any Borg ship should have, tearing through the cube’s shields in seconds. Kinetic warheads follow, and the cube shatters. “Prophets, that AI is good.”  
  
“And that’s bad,” Tess murmurs.  
  
“Esplin, request additional ships from the DJC. Recommend they send Hugh or Six of Fifteen, fight wraith with wraith.”  
  
A probe appears ahead of us but Tess and the tacscorts blast it out of the way in short order, leaving it a flaming wreck far behind as we close with the planet. “Begin orbital insertion.”  
  
“Geosynchronous in thirty seconds, ma’am,” Park confirms as we swing to starboard and bank, “leveling” the ship relative to the planet.  
  
“Tess, drop ventral shields.” I hit the intercom. “Assault unit, MACO 131, you are clear for immediate deployment. May the Prophets walk with you.”  
  
“_Confirm, ma’am, see you on the other side._”  
  
Gaarra reports, “Transport commencing. Transport complete.”  
  
“Ventral shields back up,” Tess adds.  
  
I nod in acknowledgement. “Wiggin, maintain sensor lock. We get even a peep that the Queen or One of One is headed our way, scrub the op and bail.”  
  
“Understood, ma’am.”  
  
It’s all up to the gropos now.  
  
I hate this part.  
  


* * *

  
_Planet Delta-86017114-3, 35° 54' 17.684" x -79° 2' 48.888"._  
  
I love this part.  
  
The face-to-face asskicking part, not the being in Borg hell. The latter brings back bad memories. The former is why I went for MACO instead of regular Starfleet Security.  
  
The racket of my heavy-weapons man’s Omega Force-modified M2 Browning is incredible but I can immediately see why they brought back a nearly 500-year-old weapon: it puts huge holes in Borg.  
  
“_Watch out, Connor,_” Aly Gantumur sends to my helmet over the noise of Luiz raking a cluster of drones with the big fifty-cal, “_I’m picking up one of those assimilated Gorn headed for our position!_”  
  
“Time to break out the big guns, then,” I mutter, kicking open a crate and grabbing a gray tube, hefting it to my shoulder. They’ve upgraded the FGM-385 Pilum since I was assimilated but the basic idea hasn’t changed: aim, fire, forget. “Missile away!” I feel the slight kick of the launch charge and my visor automatically darkens ahead of the firing of the main fusion thruster.  
  
Kallio leans out from behind cover with perfect timing, a split-second after the anti-tank missile streaks past his position. The hulking form of the Borg superheavy combat drone is staggered by the explosion, but a DU frag round brings it to the ground, the left knee destroyed.  
  
“I’ve got this bastard. Kallio, move back to cover Gantumur.”  
  
“_Yessir!_”  
  
The assimilated Gorn’s still trying to move for us, the chest a burned wreck thanks to the missile launcher, one arm gone with half the head and the crippled leg leaving the creature in a half-crawl. Poor bastard. I slap the replicator on the FGM-385 to make sure it’s reloaded, aim, and fire again. This time the Borg collapses in burned fragments. _Sorry, buddy. Better this way._  
  
“_That one’s Gorn,_” Kallio cracks, to a collective groan over the comm.  
  
I lay the missile launcher back into the crate, unsling my Brown Recluse, and start firing off three-round bursts. “Lamont, you think they’re thinning?”  
  
“We should be so lucky.”  
  
“_Connor, I don’t need your sniper, are you sure you have enough support?_” Gantumur’s voice isn’t worried, exactly, more common-sense stress in the tone.  
  
“I’m good, I’ve got Luiz, a machine gun, and a missile launcher.” Case in point, that machine gun Luiz is now carrying slung at his hip mows down another row of drones that emerge from a side passage, marching towards our little patch of ground in Borg hell. “What I’m more worried about is what the hell the Borg were doing here to set off the science guys like they did _and_ attract that super-AI or whatever the fuck it is!”  
  
“_We’ll find out soon enough,_” the Welshwoman notes. “_Hohenzollern, watch the flank! We’ve got the LZ, Connor; move out!_”  
  
Another wave materializes, closer this time. “Gantumur, they’re getting through our dampeners!”  
  
“_Shite. Roger that._” The Borg has a nearly infinite supply of drones, meat puppets for its AI. If a few of them get decohered by transporter dampeners, so what? It can afford the casualties to pierce our scramblers by trial and error—and we only have the one tech with us, since I left K’tar keeping the Borg off of the LZ.  
  
“Belka, keep the boltheads away from us!”  
  
“Working on it, sir!” the new meat, Belka Saris, agrees, spraying rounds from her submachine gun down a side passage as we rush into the installation.  
  
“Luiz, back up,” I order. The big man starts a defiant response, but I shake my head. “Don’t argue, fall back towards Lamont and K’tar. I’ll…”  
  
Three Borg heavy combat drones, Talaxian-based by the looks of them, beam in around me. _SHIT..._  
  
My arms are pinned in less than half a second. I can tear out, but there’s the third drone with its arm already raised and tubules out. _Not like this, not like…_  
  
Wait. I’m supposed to be immune to nanoprobes, right? Not like I’ve ever tested it, but…  
  
Assimilation tubules breach my neck armor. My neck seizes up almost instantly, but I don’t hear a damn thing. If that crazy doctor was right, I’m still me, if not… I’ll take these bastards with me.  
  
I yank my right arm from the first drone’s grasp, hauling myself around to pound the one that just stabbed me in the face. It crumples backwards, face concave and implants sparking.  
  
Still no voices.  
  
Luiz’s fifty-cal roars and the first drone vanishes in a hail of sparks and bits of metal. I flip the second drone over, rip my arm from its grasp, and stamp straight through its chest, then pull out my pistol and shoot it three times in the face. Gone. Still no voices. Pain in the neck, like acid, but no loss of mobility, no creeping voice or spreading paralysis.  
  
“_Kuna te nim!_” I hear Gantumur yell something that sounds like profanity, then I hear the shriek of an anti-materiel phaser and something bounces off the side of my helmet. I look around in time to see the smoking remains of another tactical drone stumble to the ground behind Luiz.  
  
“_Sorry the delay, sir,_” her sniper, K’lak, comments in a near-emotionless voice. Sounds weird coming from a Klingon.  
  
“No apologies necessary,” I reply. Still no voices, and my onboard hypo hits me with heavy painkillers with seven blinks at my HUD. “I’m, uh, I’m OK. No voices, Borg must not have breached the armor.” It’s bullshit, but my armor’s health-monitoring systems suffered a convenient “failure” earlier, so nobody can call me on it. Or at least nobody should be able to. Lucky thing I was out of K’lak’s sight. “Luiz, let’s move before they get back.”  
  
“_Maybe next time you keep me around, sir?_” Kallio snarks over coms. “_You went to the effort of getting a Finn, after all._”  
  
“Noted. Overconfident of me, stupid stunt. Chew me out later.”  
  
I can practically hear the little bastard shake his head. “_Crazy _helvetin _Americans. Probably never left the province before you went to the Academy._”  
  
I ignore the comedian with some effort. “Side note, Gantumur, what the fuck was it you just said?”  
  
“_Mph, not fit for polite company. Me mum’s Kurdish. Hey, watch the flank, damn it!_”  
  
“You’re talking to a woman who got written up three times at the Academy for cussing too much,” I note, grabbing the weapons crate one-handed and slinging it over my back. “Though I suppose we have junior officers on the line…”  
  
“_Think of the ensigns, aye?_”  
  
“Sure. Move up, move up!” I let the weapons crate drag now, better not to do obviously inhuman shit, not until we know this new petty officer they added to my team is trustworthy. She’s Bajoran like the captain, but that’s not much of a guarantee, and Gantumur herself isn’t aware of my existence as a walking war crime.  
  
Luiz fires off another volley. “Bolthead _puta_ AI is fucking persistent.”  
  
“Keep moving, almost there. Belka, stay with me, as in right fucking beside me.”  
  
“Yessir.” She moves up. At least she’s not too green.  
  
“Lamont, you good?”  
  
“Watching both sides, we’re good.”  
  
“Good man. We’ll try to make some noise. Vinculum shouldn’t be much further.” Goddamn it I want to just charge ahead, use the bullshit levels of strength that I got injected with, avoid risking good men to a fate worse than death like this, but that means life in prison as soon as someone calls Command and none of the boys would let that happen. Assholes. Probably they like having someone around to tank Borg drones, too. That reasoning I can understand, at least.  
  
“Belka, keep that damn jammer up,” Luiz snarls as another group of Borg materializes, one decohering into slime but the other four marching forwards into Luiz’s machine-gun fire.  
  
“They’re not exactly making this easy!”  
  
“Almost there, keep it together…” I reach the corner and peer around. “Bingo. I read six tac drones, four heavy tac, and a superheavy infantry unit.” Missile time again. “Luiz, keep an eye out, I’m gonna clear the way.”  
  
“Confirm, LT.”  
  
The Borg’s tactics are remarkably simplistic. Scratch that, they’re fucking infantile. The drones march forwards in unison, the AI supremely confident in its trillions of bodies. Fucking _expendable_. Fuck that fucking AI.  
  
The Pilum, as expected, blows one of the heavy tac drones and four of the lighter models apart, but the rest of the formation spreads out. The tricky thing about the Borg is that it’s capable of adapting within certain parameters—it’s _constrained_, not outright stupid.  
  
“Luiz, could use that machine gun.”  
  
More drones beam in ahead, forming a cyborg wall between us and the target. Luiz heaves his Browning up to my left, taking aim and bracing his back against a pillar.  
  
“Roger that, LT.”  
  
That gun’s fucking loud, but it works like a charm. Dunno why I ever doubted it, really.  
  
“LT, you know that thing has a frag setting, right?”  
  
The fuck? I check the missile launcher. Well, hot damn. They updated this sonofabutch in the years I was out. Fuck, I need to read my back issues of _Jane’s_. And how will I explain that to the subscription department—“oh, hi, I was dead for four years, legally speaking, now I’m back”? Nah…  
  
Oh, wait, the ship probably has them in the library. Never mind.  
  
“Thanks,” I chuckle. “Heh, this is gonna be good.”  
  
Luiz is getting a drink on me later. That frag setting is intensely satisfying, blowing away the rest of the formation in one shot. “Alright, gimme time to reload.” Yoyodyne Division engineering isn’t great at the best of times (hello, nonfunctional gun replicator that got me assimilated!), and I don’t want to be caught by surprise. Fortunately, it works this time. “Alright, let’s move! Belka, the charge!”  
  
“Got it right here!”  
  
“Good. Move!”  
  
We double-time it to the vinculum, Luiz downing a couple of drones as they beam in. “I think they’re running out,” he says disbelievingly.  
  
My comm crackles. “_Connor, Kanril. Hurry up down there, One of One’s winning!_”  
  
“There’s your answer,” I mutter. “Belka, you’re up.”  
  
She runs up and starts feeling up the vinculum as we spread out to cover her; Luiz pulls a stack of landmines out of his pack and starts throwing them back the way we came like frisbees. “Come on, where are you—Aha!” She reaches into her belt and plugs something in.  
  
“How long do you need?” I may be immune to the Borg, but I don’t want to spend any longer than absolutely necessary in this shithole. I can feel the memories welling up—frozen in place as my hand is removed, being slowly stripped of my hardsuit by an unfeeling AI—and sit on them. _Stay focused, Rachel. You’ve got a hero-worshipping nephew to get back to._  
  
“I’m past what passes for security with this thing and I’m starting the dump. Come on, come on! Oh, _wraithspawn._”  
  
“_¿Qué pasa?_” Luiz doesn’t quite hide his worry at being stuck in this place with the Borg all around us.  
  
“Nothing, sir. Well, not nothing: I triggered some kind of defense program but I killed the process before it did anything.”  
  
Something about that rubs me the wrong way, the tone maybe? Part of the downside of superhuman senses, I can pick up a lot of little inflections in people’s voices but I can’t interpret them. A nearsighted housewife in the body of Jane Bond. Or something like that.  
  
“Good work. Finish it up and we’re out of here. Luiz, start on the charge.”  
  
“Roger that.”  
  
“_Connor, we’re holding the LZ, but the firefight’s moving into orbit,_” Gantumur says, even tenser now. “_Hohenzollern, I said watch the bloody flank!_”  
  
Poor Hohenzollern’s new, hasn’t even been through SERE yet. She’s some German royalty, 8th or 9th in line to the throne, and barely old enough to fuck legally. Like what seems like half the crew now, she was sent out into space to be a warm body filling a role after the decimation of the Iconian War. Poor girl should be studying, or chasing boys or girls at some fancy ball or whatever the fuck it is the Kaiser’s cousins are supposed to do.  
  
I snap off another burst, felling another drone scout. “Belka?”  
  
“Just twenty more seconds, I swear—_aah!_” The tech flies backwards as a burst of light signals some sort of shock pulse from the device. She lands flat on her ass, armor sparking. Fuck!  
  
Luiz bellows, “Man down! Man down!” as he rushes over to her.  
  
“Gah, _ye’phekk maktal kosst amojan_, I’m fine, just got a little fried. Lieutenant?”  
  
Huh, I recognize that phrase. The Captain’s favorite curse. “How do I finish this?” I sling my rifle over my back and move to the vinculum.  
  
“Get my PADD, hit the red key twice, then the green key, then blue, wait for the bar to fill, then unplug it and call for evac.”  
  
“Ok…” I hit the red key once, twice, then green, then blue. As promised, a progress bar starts up, moving far slower than I’d like it to. “Ten percent...twenty…”  
  
Luiz guns down three more drones. “They’re coming back!” There’s a thunderclap as one of his mines goes off.  
  
“I fucking noticed! Thirty-five percent... forty-five… set the charge if it isn’t set already. Cap, it’s Connor, get ready to yank us!”  
  
“_Copy that!_” Captain Kanril answers. “_The Cooperative just arrived and engaged One of One’s lead cube, you’ve got time!_”  
  
“Sixty percent… fucking come on already…”  
  
“LT, I’ve got Belka. We can leave the Pilum.”  
  
“I can bring it, we might need the backup. Eighty percent… fucking fuck, hurry the fuck up!”  
  
I hear somebody laughing on the comm. “_What was that about ensigns and their tender ears?_” Gantumur remarks.  
  
“I’ll put a credit in my nephew’s swear jar.” In response to Lamont’s questioning grunt over coms, “I made a reference to, uh, taking care of myself, while at a family dinner. Mom was asking why I don’t have a steady date yet. Amy was pissed, let me—ha! Done! Let’s move!” I stow the PADD and reach for the missile launcher.  
  
Luiz hauls Belka up, half-lifting her off the ground by leaning her on his shoulder, and she’s not a small woman. “_Ready._”  
  
I grab the Pilum and palm the activation panel on the quantum warhead with my other hand. “Let’s move it!”  
  
“_Ener_gizing!” Transporter Chief Korbuhlo says, half into the channel, half out loud as Transporter Room One materializes around me. The Bolian waits a moment, then: “Bridge, Transporters, I’ve got them!” Then he looks at me and grins. “Hah, I’ve never beamed twenty people from two targets onto one pad before!”  
  
Kallio ignores him, racing for the intercom as the rumble of the main impulse engines shakes the floor. “Medical team to Transporter One!”  
  
I turn to Gantumur. Her blonde hair’s slicked to her head with sweat as she pulls off her helmet, and she’s breathing heavily. I shuck my own helmet, and grin. “Nice work, thanks for the sniper to cover Luiz’s big ass.”  
  
“No problem—” Then her eyes widen. “Oh, shite, your neck…”  
  
I clap a hand to my neck. Something’s running down it—I pull up my hand. Corroded grey-and-green slime mixed with blood is leaking from my neck. I grimace, racking my brains for an excuse.  
  
“Must be lubricant fluid or something.” The holes will heal soon enough, the pain in my neck’s almost gone, but I need to cover my ass fast. “A Borg tried to get me, but he didn’t get through my armor. Probably punched a line.”  
  
Gantumur looks a little suspicious. “You look like you’ve got a couple of holes on your—”  
  
“Yeah, I felt that. Splinters from the gorget plate, I guess. I know a guy who got killed by his own suit’s fragments once.” More bullshit, hopefully she can’t see through it.  
  
“Fine, you don’t want to tell me the truth, I won’t push it, long as the Captain knows.”  
  
Ah, shit, now I’ve got her suspicious. And Aly’s a good drinking buddy at the bar, too. “She does.” That part’s true, at least. “She and I are on the same page.” I keep my hand on my neck anyway as the skin starts to close over. “Fuck, where are the medics?”  
  
“Here,” that blonde Betazoid corpsman, Watkins, answers, coming in with the crisis-response team. “Who’s hurt?”  
  
“Belka, over there. My boys and I are good.”  
  
Belka grits her teeth. “Electric shock up my forearm, feels like the fingers are burned. OW!” she exclaims as Watkin unsnaps her gauntlet and slides it off.  
  
“Yep. Not so bad, second-degree electrical burns. Your armor stopped most of it but we need to get you to sickbay. Stretcher!”  
  


* * *

_  
Captain’s Ready Room._  
  
“We’re… clear of the Borg, right, Captain?”  
  
I lower the PADD I’m composing my mission report on and look up at Lieutenant Rachel Connor, who has a pressure bandage on one side of her neck. I nod, then amend it: “So the Vaads said, anyway. According to Darva they physically can’t follow us through Underspace.”  
  
“Oh. Good.”  
  
“In case you’re nervous, I didn’t include anything in my report about having an assimilation-proof team leader,” I add in a sardonic tone. She glances up at me to see my lopsided grin. “That was a joke, Lieutenant, cheer up.”  
  
“I… wasn’t actually sure I was assimilation-proof, ma’am. The doc who made me was a fucking moron, sixteen million-credit DNA or not.” She scratches at the neck bandage. “Also the rest of the team wasn’t cooked up in a lab with the body of a disconnected drone by a couple of hacks working for Section 31.”  
  
I wince, and change the subject. “How’s Petty Officer Belka?”  
  
“Her hand got burned. Won’t heal the way I do, but frankly I think that’s a blessing.”  
  
“Well, your bomb went off, good job on that.” Tess wasn’t sure what to make of having Chief Culyn cannibalize a quantum torpedo for an eighty megaton demo charge.  
  
“Thank you, ma’am.”  
  
The door chimes. “_Captain, Master Chief Kinlo to see you,_” Tess announces from the bridge.  
  
“Enter!”  
  
The white-haired Klingon strides in and throws another PADD onto my desk, then rounds on Connor. “Respectfully, sir, what are you trying to pull? That data dump is a joke.”  
  
“What the fuck are you talking about? Did Belka screw up? She’s the one who did the hack, all I did was press the button to download it all.”  
  
“Well, she _sabotaged _us, Lieutenant. We got enough strategic information to clear the Borg out of Benthan space twice over, but all the scientific data from that installation, it’s been erased, and she made a damn good stab at making it look like it wasn’t there to begin with.”  
  
“The fuck?” Connor looks pissed now. “_That’s _why she sounded funny! She knew that I know as much about hacking as I know about modern art, and she convinced me to leave K’tar behind! That lying bitch!” Connor’s hands flex; doubtless she’s thinking of wringing Belka’s neck. “If she’s Section 31, I volunteer to deal with her, Captain.”  
  
“Kinlo, did you—” I begin.  
  
“I went to Lieutenant Korekh first, had him post a guard in sickbay just in case, but last I checked she was sleeping off Dr. Wirrpanda’s drugs.”  
  
The PADD stylus in my hand snaps with a sharp crack. I throw the fragments in the general direction of the replicator and reach into my desk for my sheathed bayonet, snap it to my belt. “Connor, with me! Master Chief, return to your station; I’ll take care of this.”  
  
We storm past a startled Tess and into the turbolift. “What the fuck do you think’s going on, Captain?”  
  
“I don’t know, but Belka’s going to tell us. Something’s funny, though.”  
  
“You’re telling me?”  
  
I turn and tip my head down to look Connor in the eye as the turbolift car stops; for all of her muscle and augmented strength, I’m still easily a whole head taller than her. “She deleted the research data but _not _the information on ship deployment.”  
  
Her eyes widen in understanding. “So she’s a mole? Foreign, you think, ma’am?”  
  
“That doesn’t fit, either. They want us to kill the Borg but not learn about them? Why the _phekk _would a foreign state want that?”  
  
The MACO shrugs. “Either way, I can smell lies. Technically I can hear them, too, but I’m not as good with that.” She taps her nose. “Part of the package. We’ll narrow it down eventually.” Then she gasps. “Wait. What was it the science guys said? Something about tachyon readings? And why did the new super-AI show up in the middle of the fight? She was targeting the Queen’s Borg exclusively, didn’t hit us once.”  
  
“Not until Hugh and Justicar Morlen intercepted her, anyway,” I agree as we reach sickbay. “I’ll call you in if I need you.”  
  
“Ma’am.”  
  
We stride into sickbay past K’lak and McMillan. I nod my acknowledgement. Connor stops to thank K’lak for shooting something but I keep going, stopping only when I see Gaarra. “Gaarra, what are you doing down here?”  
  
“Checking on one of my lieutenants. What are _you _doing down here, El?”  
  
“Belka Saris. Come on, I need somebody to look intimidating who can’t snap her neck with a pinky.” Connor’s got good self-control, has to, to be a MACO, but better safe than sorry.  
  
“Can do!” he faux-cheerfully remarks, following me as I stomp up to Warragul, who recoils at my expression. “Where is she?” He wordlessly points into one of the rooms. “Thank you.”  
  
I throw back the curtain as the reddish-blonde petty officer jerks awake, a look of alarm in her green eyes as I recall what I know about her, or I suppose what Starfleet thinks they know about her. Age 28, born in Christopher’s Landing on Titan, granddaughter of refugees from the Occupation, started as a systems engineer but then went through MACO training at the base on Hellguard near the Romulan border. “Captain Kanril, what can I—”  
  
“Petty Officer Belka Saris, when did you last review the Starfleet Code of Military Justice? Recall for me Articles 92 and 106, if you please.”  
  
She recoils. “Article 106? You’re accusing me of _espionage_, ma’am?!”  
  
Now _that’s _odd. I’ve never met her before but I didn’t have to tell her not to call me ‘sir’. “Why shouldn’t I? You deliberately erased data you were ordered to retrieve while making it _look _like there wasn’t any.”  
  
“I did nothing of the sort!”  
  
“Don’t think of me as an idiot—”  
  
“Believe me, I _don’t_, ma’am.”  
  
“—because between you and Command Master Chief Kinlo, I’m going to go with the one who kept the systems engineer rating her whole career. Now, can we dispense with the chickenshit? Do I need to bring Lieutenant Connor in here?”  
  
She groans. “No, you don’t need the living lie detector.”  
  
“The what?” Gaarra exclaims. “You know about—”  
  
“I kind of have to. She saved my life. Six times. Including once when she smelled a guy lying when he was about to shoot me and tore his arm off before he could pull the trigger.”  
  
“Wh—Connor—you—” I close my mouth and try to marshal my thoughts. “Petty Officer Belka, what in the Prophets’ unknowable names are you _talking _about?”  
  
She sighs. “My name isn’t Belka, Captain.”  
  
“I kind of figured that out already; who are you and who do you work for?”  
  
“Belka” holds up a hand. “Understand, what I’m about to tell you is classified above top secret. You are not to disclose this to anyone, _especially _Lieutenant Connor, under penalty of court martial. Close the curtain.”  
  
“Fine,” I snap, throwing the curtain across; I expected that. “Who. The _phekk_. Are. You?”  
  
“I’m Commander Reshek Taryn, Starfleet Intelligence Special Operations Section Eight.”  
  
“Reshek?” I look at my husband. “Gaarra, I didn’t know you had any other relatives in the service.”  
  
“Neither did he, ma’am.”  
  
I look back over to the spook and raise an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”  
  
“Captain Kanril, I’m your daughter.”  
  
That sound you just heard was me trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.  
  
“And I’m honestly not surprised you caught me out, Captain,” she continues. “I never _could _hide anything from you.”  
  
“Wait,” Gaarra interrupts, “go back to the part… where you’re our _daughter_?”  
  
She nods. “I was—_will be _born in 2421.”  
  
“You’re a time traveler?”  
  
“Well, I’d kind of have to be, Mother, since I’m actually a little older than you are right now: I’m 33.”  
  
I just stare at her. Finally: “This is a joke, right?”  
  
She points out into the corridor. “Mother, go borrow a medical tricorder from Dr. Wirrpanda, one I can’t have messed with. Set it to scan my DNA and have the computer run a comparison with yours and Father’s.”  
  
I decide to humor “Taryn” and pick up the device. Takes two tries, I haven’t used a medical tricorder since my last first aid course, but finally I get the results. “Prophets. Gaarra, look at this.”  
  
There’s no mistake. She’s half me, half him.  
  
I just sit there staring at her for a moment, but then I start to see it. She’s got Gaarra’s long nose, my jawline. Her hair’s lighter than mine, more of a dark eichenberry blonde than my deep red, but those green eyes, they’re definitely from the Kanril side.  
  
Taryn. That actually makes sense. It was always what I said I was going to name my daughter if I had one, the old Kendran word for the species of hardwood that makes up most of the remaining primeval forests in the Kendra Valley. It was my great-grandmother’s name.  
  
“Okay, so you’re our kid,” Gaarra says uncertainly. “What are you doing on our ship a decade before you were born?”  
  
“Section 8 is Starfleet temporal intelligence.”  
  
“Timecops?” he queries. “Like the Department of Temporal Investigations?”  
  
She grins humorlessly. “DTI are timecops. We’re more like a temporal SWAT team.”  
  
“And you’re here to swat what?”  
  
“One of One’s attempt to gain the Borg Queen’s time travel technology. The technology the Queen acquired from another version of the Na’Kuhl.”  
  
“Who?” I ask.  
  
“Actually, I think I’ve heard of them,” Gaarra remarks. “Tzenketh Sector, right? Isolationists?”  
  
“In _this _timeline. There’s another branch that—” She winces. “Rrg, that timeline was a cesspool of nonsense, so many incursions in a multifactional temporal war, in an already shaky timeline fork, it became spatiotemporally unstable and wiped itself out altogether when two incursions collided. It’s hard to explain; it involved Abner Bowman, or was it Jonathan Archer, and, uh, _Enterprise _NX-01.”  
  
“Who?” I ask again.  
  
“Abner Bowman. He was the captain of the United Earth Starship _Enterprise_, you may have heard of it.”  
  
“I thought that was Chen Hwai.”  
  
“Captain Hwai’s what was supposed to happen, but there was another version where—” She squeezes her eyes shut and presses a hand to her face. “Okay, let me start over; that’s a whole ‘nother story altogether. Prophets.” She straightens in the bed and grabs the water glass off the nightstand and takes a sip. “Okay, look. People think of time like it’s a strict progression of cause to effect, but that’s a really poor analogy. It’s more like—”  
  
“What, a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff?” I raise an eyebrow. “Are you seriously going to quote _Doctor Who _at me?” Gaarra gives me a look. “What?”  
  
Taryn chuckles. “Well, it would fit you, wouldn’t it, Mother? But no, no, time… It’s kind of like a rope. Of infinite length.”  
  
“A rope?” That is genuinely one I’ve never heard of before.  
  
“It’s still not a perfect analogy but… Look, the rope fibers are probabilities, chances that particular versions of events will occur. Some versions are more likely than others and usually they’re so similar the difference is imperceptible, and time has an… inertia to it that tends to true up whatever small differences do occur so that nobody without temporal senses can usually tell. Makes most actual time travel look deterministic—go back, you’ve already been back, within that particular strand, like the whale probe incident in 2286. But the rope can also be damaged.”  
  
“Which is the reason for the Temporal Prime Directive,” Gaarra surmises.  
  
“Exactly. Classic example: the mirror universe. It started as a similar timeline, albeit one where Earth’s Western Roman Empire took a little longer than usual to fall—Flavius Aetius overthrew Emperor Valentinian after the Catalaunian Plains and beat the Vandals in 455—and then the Nazis, Trumpers, Optimum, and the Krasnov junta were a little more successful.” She holds up two fingers close together. “Just a little bit, it doesn’t take much. But then import Borg from the future and—”  
  
“The rope, what, frayed?”  
  
“Exactly. Or take that mess with Ne—sorry, rambling again.” She coughs. “Point is, the rope doesn’t fray by itself. Major temporal incursions literally damage time, so our job is to intervene to stop frays where possible. You wouldn’t believe the damage One of One could do with time travel; it’s incalculable. She started as a medical AI, she wants to ‘heal’ all life,” she explains with air quotes.  
  
“Past, present, and future?” I guess.  
  
Taryn nods. “Ordering out Section 8 is the option of last resort. Ideally we don’t use time travel at all, it’s too risky, but this was one of those times. DTI detected major temporal incursions in the past and far future, all stemming from this Borg expansion into Benthan space. So we had to infiltrate USS Bajor because there wasn’t any other way to operate without phekking things up even worse, and I had to be the one to do it because my skill profile matched requirements the best.” She grimaces. “The other option was Captain Connor, your Lieutenant Connor, and despite the camo skin she can’t lie convincingly to save her life—I clean her out every time we play poker.”  
  
I snort at that. “Well, you got caught, so now what?”  
  
“Well, now you order the lieutenant and the master chief to leave it alone and write a report for DTI, and I’m out of your hair the minute we dock at the Jenolan Sphere. ‘Reassigned’,” she adds, making air quotes again.  
  
“Okay,” I answer. “Here’s a question. How do you know that by explaining all this to us you haven’t frayed the rope yourself?”  
  
“Oh, that.” She chuckles. “Remember, Mother, the rope fibers are just probabilities. There’s acceptable and unacceptable levels of risk. Acceptable level is, you and Father just do what comes naturally to you, let your future take care of itself and don’t worry about me. Unacceptable? One of One.” She shrugs. “Easy calculation, needs of the many and all that.”  
  
“All right, I’ll buy that. So you’re okay with this.”  
  
She grins. “Better than okay. Regs aside, this is _the _USS _Bajor_, the ship my mother, _you_, made famous. And I’m supposed to come and go without you ever knowing what you created? I know what the rules are for, but I don’t have to _like _‘em.”  
  
And I crack up, I can’t help it. She’s _definitely _my daughter.  
  
I try quizzing Taryn on my future but she refuses to reveal anything more than she already has, so Gaarra and I leave her in the bed in sickbay a few minutes later. Gaarra stops to talk to Warragul as I join Connor and the guards outside. “K’lak, McMillan, stand down. False alarm.”  
  
“Ma’am,” the big Klingon grunts, and he and the redheaded human head off down the corridor.  
  
Which leaves Connor standing there gaping at me. “Ma’am, what? Ten minutes ago you were—”  
  
“That’s classified, Connor,” I interrupt matter-of-factly. “The research data was not erased, it was never there. Do we have an understanding between us?”  
  
“…_What??? _Captain—”  
  
I hold up a hand. “Don’t worry about it! Look, I’ll throw you a bone: it turned out, Belka’s mission didn’t have anything to do with Section 31.”  
  
“What are you smiling about, ma’am?”  
  
“Um, Connor, you’ve heard of ‘classified’, right?”  
  
Connor shakes her head. “…Yes, ma’am. I trust you.” She turns, presumably heading out to hit the bar, or maybe the gym. “Fucking spooks…” I hear her mutter. “Give me boltheads any day… next time I’ll do the hacking myself, hafta learn the basics off K’tar…”  
  
Gaarra steps into the hall behind me and puts his arm around me. I lean into him. “So we’re going to have a daughter,” the big man murmurs into my ear.  
  
“Probably,” I whisper back, turning my head to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Remember, time is a rope.”  
  
He laughs. “That has got to be the silliest metaphor I have ever heard in my life!” He returns my kiss with interest and we start walking towards the turbolift, holding hands. “How ‘bout it, you wanna try making her?”  
  


* * *

  
_Grantham Memorial Hospital, Starfleet Headquarters, San’a, Greater Jordan. A possible November 2421._  
  
“One more push, Admiral!” the bright green Fuima attending orders.  
  
I half-roar, half-scream with effort and pain, and then I hear a new scream join mine. The masked Vulcan doctor between my legs pulls back and stands, a bloody towel in her hands. “It is a girl, Admiral Kanril. Congratulations.”  
  
“Lieutenant, I’m picking up a possible obstetric hemorrhage,” one of the nurses says from the monitoring station.  
  
“Protoplaser!”  
  
I’m barely listening, exhausted from twelve hours of labor, as T’Fel washes my daughter, then wraps her in a blanket and lays her down in my arms, wrinkled and red in the face and perfect.  
  
“She’s gonna give her brothers nine kinds of hell when she gets bigger,” Gaarra’s holographic image says, leaning over us. “Prophets, I wish I could be there with you, El.” His hand strokes my cheek, all cold pressure, no warmth, just an image and a force field, transmitted from the _Bajor _over subspace. Naturally he got sent out on a five-year exploration mission towards the Core, and only _then _I figured out I was pregnant again.  
  
“Congratulations, Admiral,” Tess chimes in from my right, sending her image from the USS _Iconia_. Captain’s uniform looks good on her. “What are you going to call her?”  
  
“Taryn,” Gaarra and I answer her simultaneously, without looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is actually what inspired the original prompt (titled "Vader, I Am Your Son"). I just woke up one morning with the "Captain Kanril, I'm your daughter" bit bouncing around in my head and just _had_ to come up with a story to put it in.
> 
> And yes, I'm aware I'm disregarding canonical details on Bajoran birth. They're biologically impossible and that was a stupid episode anyway.
> 
> The "time is a rope" conversation is a shortened form of my "Grand Unified Theory of _Star Trek_ Time Travel. The theory goes that there is an overall timestream of an infinite number of timelines, each of them "strands" in a "rope" of infinite length (but a single point of origin, that being the Big Bang). The strands of a rope are all slightly offset from one another, but if you pull on the rope (i.e. the natural forward flow of time), the strands tend to move in the same direction, hence the "temporal inertia" property that's sometimes present (e.g. Annorax in "Year of Hell" complaining about it feeling like time itself was resisting him). Time travel is possible within a given strand, but if any changes made are small enough that the immediate result closely resembles the original version, future events will still play out the same (hence why Sisko impersonating Gabriel Bell and Kirk et al. ensuring Edith Keeler's death restores the timeline to its original form).
> 
> HOWEVER! A major change to past events, such as the STFC Borg incursion or Nero's little misadventure, will cause the timeline to split, or "fray". The new timeline is still attached at one end and so it still gets pulled along by the rope, but it's jutting out at an angle and so events are often very different.
> 
> You know what happens when a rope frays? It becomes weaker. You keep fraying it again and again and again, you'll weaken it further, and if you weaken it so far that it breaks? Well, according to Reshek Taryn, that's what happened to the timeline containing the canonical version of ENT and the Temporal Cold War: they caused so much damage to time itself that that entire timeline collapsed and therefore, from the POV of normal people in "my" prime timeline, never happened. ("My" timeline's corresponding events are a variation of the fanfic _Reimagined Enterprise_ where Jonathan Archer is played by Mike Colter and is a UE ambassador-at-large attached to NX-01, which is commanded by a Taiwanese fellow named Chen Hwai.)
> 
> And this comes to the point of the story: I was trying to create a real imperative beyond mere regime protection for there to be timecops and a Temporal Prime Directive. This way, any hypothetical "time war" isn't just "good guys v. terrorists" or whatever, it's about protecting _everybody in the universe_ from literally being erased from existence.


	27. Didn't Expect That...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warned by Section 31 that an assassin is after her, Kanril Eleya prepares to turn the tables on them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the lesser things that annoys me about ENT and STO is the portrayal of Section 31. They're treated like they're the good guys, but in their original incarnation in the far superior DS9, victory was achieved by the _thwarting_ of their Evil Plan: the Dominion War ended not by genocide of the Founders, but by an act of kindness. In response to the argument that they do the necessary evil things that a nation requires for its survival (which was even used by Ira Steven Behr), I always point to Ron Moore having already created Starfleet Intelligence for exactly that role. Which leaves Section 31 with the _unnecessary_ evil, such as getting a Federation-friendly Romulan senator tried for treason purely because she _might_ change her mind later.
> 
> (Which is a complete misunderstanding of Romulan psychology, by the way: they entered the war in large part because of the already-accomplished _necessary_ evil. More than anything else they want _revenge_ for, so they were led to think, the Dominion planning to break its deal and assassinating one of their senators.)
> 
> So when this prompt came up in [Unofficial Literary Challenge 31: "There Are 31!"](https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1226747/ulc-entry-31-prompt-there-are-31):
>
>> aten66 said:
>> 
>> **Prompt 14, Section 31: "Whiteout" by F.D.**
>> 
>> Your pal and mine, Franklin Drake, has come and gone in the middle of the night, leaving you with a cryptic warning. 'Beware the Albino, he has set his eyes on you'. You didn't think anything of it, until you were contacted via subspace and left with a set of dates and coordinates matching the deaths of certain persons of interest to your superiors, both enemies and allies. And the last set is meant for you.
> 
> ... I jumped on it.
> 
> This story also ties in more directly than most with [Worffan101's arc dealing with Rachel Connor](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1509527). Franklin Drake was directly involved in her creation and hunted her for several years after she escaped his lab, spanning the timeframe when this story takes place.
> 
> Cast:
> 
>   * Crew of USS _Bajor_ (NCC-97238, _Galaxy_-class):
>     * Captain Kanril Eleya, commanding officer (Bajoran female): Jennifer Hale
>     * Commander Tesjha Phohl, first officer and tactical officer (Andorian _shen_): Claudia Black
>     * Commander Birail Riyannis, chief science officer (joined Trill female): Ursulla Abbot
>     * Lieutenant Commander Reshek Gaarra, operations officer (Bajoran male): Adam Baldwin
>     * Lieutenant Dul'krah, Clan Korekh, chief of security (Pe'khdar male): Idris Elba
>     * Lieutenant (JG) Park Jin-Soo, conn officer (human male): Will Yun Lee
>     * Lieutenant (JG) Arak Esplin, communications officer (Saurian female): Robyn Kramer
>     * Lieutenant Rachel Connor, commander, MACO Unit 131 (human Augment female): Michelle Rodriguez
>     * Command Master Chief Petty Officer Kinlo, daughter of Koltek, chief of the boat (Klingon female): Kate Mulgrew
>   * Other characters:
>     * Agent Franklin Drake, Section 31 (human male): Adam Harrington
>     * Captain Thraka gasch Kull, skipper, SS _Gann vesh Wek_: Danny DeVito

**Didn’t Expect That**

> _I know what you must be thinking_   
_But you’re not right_   
_You should know I’m not your baby_   
_Not tonight_   
_(I never was) The kinda girl to trip and fall in love_   
_(I never was) The kind to say enough is not enough_   
_(I never was) The touchy feely co-dependent kind_   
_I like the feeling but I’m not on cloud nine_
> 
> _You love it, you hate it_   
_You think it, you say it_   
_You want it, you need it_   
_I tell ya but you don’t believe it_
> 
> _What were you expecting?_   
_Another lullaby?_   
_Are you kidding?_   
_You must be high_   
_You must be high_   
_‘Cause it was just one kiss_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_
> 
> _I don’t need your flowers, they'll just go to waste_   
_I don’t want your candy ‘cause I don't like the taste_   
_(There never was) A possibility I’d stick around_   
_(It never was) My intention just to let you down_   
_(I never was) The kind of girl that’s good at playin’ house_
> 
> _Ya want it, ya need it_   
_I tell ya but you don’t believe it_
> 
> _What were you expecting?_   
_Another lullaby?_   
_Are you kidding?_   
_You must be high, you must be high_   
_‘Cause it was just one kiss_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_
> 
> _Everything about you makes me scream_   
_Be a man and get up off your knees_   
_Tryin’ to say this in the nicest way_
> 
> _What were you expecting?_   
_Another lullaby?_   
_Are you kidding?_   
_You must be high_
> 
> _What were you expecting?_   
_Another lullaby?_   
_Are you kidding?_   
_You must be high_   
_You must be high_   
_‘Cause it was just one kiss_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_   
_(Hey, hey, hey)_
> 
> [— “What Were You Expecting?” by Halestorm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILcTs_nxAdA)  


  
You ever wake up in a dark room and have somebody just sitting there?  
  
Well, I just did.  
  
My right arm snaps out for the gunbelt hanging off my nightstand and a split second later I have my Type-2 aimed at the black-clad blond man in my easy chair. I’m not as good shooting right-handed but at this range it doesn’t matter.  
  
The empty click from the trigger, though, that probably matters.  
  
Agent Franklin Drake holds up a small square of glowing plastic. “Works better with the power pack.” I swear and throw the useless pistol in his general direction. “We have a situation, Captain Kanril. Somebody wants to kill you.”  
  
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I snap at him, then look over at Gaarra and try to nudge him awake.  
  
Then I notice the needle-mark on his neck and round on Drake. If I didn’t know better I’d swear I just saw him flinch. “Don’t worry, it’s just a mild sedative; he’ll be fine in thirty minutes, probably less given his body weight.”  
  
“You son of a—”  
  
“That’s not your primary concern, Captain—”  
  
“The _phekk_ it isn’t, he’s my _husband!_”  
  
Drake’s face has settled back into that smarmy smile of his. “From where I sit, you’re by far the more important of the two: people talk about the great Captain Kanril Eleya, the Medal of Honor winner—”  
  
“_Earner,_” I correct him.  
  
“—who plotted the downfall of the Iconian Empire, they don’t talk about the guy who ran your shields and nav deflector. Now, that’s probably unjust, but you’re the one the Albino wants, not Commander Reshek. And would you mind covering up, please?”  
  
I pull the sheet up over my bare breasts, glaring at him. “All right, I’m a little confused here.”  
  
“You’re wondering who the Albino is and why you should care that he wants you dead?”  
  
“No, it’s… _What the _phekk _are you doing on my ship?!_ We’re at warp—how did you _get _here?!”  
  
“I hitched.”  
  
“I don’t remember pulling over!”  
  
“Look, as I said, that’s not important,” he insists. Now that oily smirk of his is transitioning to an irritated scowl matching mine. He tosses a data solid onto my bedsheet. “Last date and coordinates are yours. Don’t get up, I’ll show myself out.”  
  


* * *

  
I’m still fuming as Tess, Biri, Dul’krah, Kinlo and I go over the data encoded on the fingertip-sized chunk of lithium polycrystal. I _hate_ Section 31. I hate a lot of things, but a gang of unaccountable ultranationalist black-ops guys? Call me old-fashioned but when did Starfleet start taking direction from the Obsidian Order?  
  
A furious curse from Tess jerks me back to the present. “This—I _know_ Commander Taala’vran, I sent flowers to her widow for frak’s sake!” I touch her on the shoulder but she shakes my hand off. There’s a set to her jaw I’ve only seen a couple times. “I thought that was a reactor fault! He can’t make up stories about _real people!_”  
  
“I don’t think it’s a story,” the chief of the boat says, clicking a tag appended to the report. “Looks like the Corps of Engineers had some suspicions about the ‘accident’, thought USS _Viriatus_ should’ve had time to at least get off a distress signal, but they couldn’t prove anything.”  
  
“And look here, ma’am,” Dul’krah grunts. “Anatol Panar, that’s the Cardassian ambassador to the Republic who was assassinated last month. The True Way claimed responsibility but we all know it did not fit their style.”  
  
The ambassador to the Republic… “Biri, there’s a list of coordinates on that, isn’t there? I didn’t get a good look; plot them for me, would you?”  
  
The map is exactly what I thought: the twelve sets of polar coordinates all fit in a loose blob about 1700 light-years in diameter, the former territory of the Romulan Star Empire. There’s the dead wastes around Hobus, the big, green Raptor of the Republic, the smaller, darker patch of the Empire emblazoned with the eagle and dual globes, and the red cross-hatching of the Tal’Shiar junta’s baker’s dozen remaining systems.  
  
And there’s the clincher: seventh item on the list, the death of Imperial Fleet General Ael i’Baratan t’Nerul from a sudden cardiac arrest, derailing their planned invasion of the Keuhn system, the junta’s only major shipyard. Circumstantially it’s obviously an assassination, and…  
  
Then I come back to the last coordinates, which has _my_ name tagged to it. It’s on our scheduled patrol route, three days from now when we pass close to a Bok globule.  
  
I straighten and grab my PADD and a stylus off the desk, quickly scribbling a note which I pass to Dul’krah. “Send that and our data in an encrypted squirt. It’s addressed to a friend of mine in Starfleet Intelligence.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.” He turns and trots out.  
  
“Now, any ideas how the _phekk_ Drake got here? Do we have a security breach I don’t know about?”  
  
“I have an idea about that, El.” Biri brings a page of text up on the screen. “You know what this is?”  
  
“I’m going to take a stab in the dark,” I drawl, “and say, ‘maths’.”  
  
The Trill rolls her brown eyes at me and points to a few of the equations. I’m still clueless but she’s already talking like I can read it. “It’s something Admiral Scott was working on before he died. I might be able to use it.”  
  
“Keep at it.” My combadge chirps. “Kanril, go.”  
  
“_Captain, Conn._” Park’s officer of the watch at the moment. “_Lieutenant Connor is waiting in your ready room. I told her you were busy; she doesn’t seem to care._”  
  
And there’s the other shoe dropping. “Tell her I’ll be there in five minutes and to try not to wear a hole in the floor.”  
  


* * *

  
Rachel Connor is a grey-faced shaking wreck as she paces back and forth. Literally; her skin’s a pale grey color rather than its usual brownish tan.  
  
“Sit down,” I tell her, firmly but not unkindly, as soon as I enter my ready room. She obeys. “Where’s your unit?”  
  
“I told ‘em to change plans and hit the holodeck for a workout and a training sim, hostage rescue versus the Circle. It was supposed to be a four-on-one sparring match, me versus the boys.” Her hands clench and unclench against her uniform pants, the seams over her shoulders straining slightly.  
  
“You heard about our visitor, I gather?”  
  
She nods, of course; grapevine seems to be the only thing on my ship faster than the warp drive. “He got in here undetected, to _your room_, and got out just as easily. He could’ve taken me, off of a ship in the middle of interstellar space, and _nobody would have known!_ Where the hell am I safe?”  
  
I’m going to have to handle this carefully. Probably shouldn’t have blown off Intro Psych at the Academy in favor of Religious Studies… “I’ve doubled security scans as a precaution and we’re keeping the shields up at random modulation, plus I’ve notified Starfleet Intelligence. And if Drake _had_ taken you, there’d be a nationwide manhunt for him right now or I’d be turning in my combadge.”  
  
“It’s not that, ma’am. I trust you, I know that you mean the best for all of us, I know that if _anyone _on this ship got kidnapped, the bastard who took them just earned himself a one-way trip to the special Hell. The problem’s that they _won’t stop_. They took my humanity, hounded me across a hundred systems, ambushed me on _Earth_, and now I can’t even get a night’s rest on a starship in interstellar space? What more do those fuckers _want _from me?!”  
  
I start to say “don’t worry”, but it sounds hollow even in my head. Instead I clear my throat. “Look, Connor, I can’t guarantee what’s going to happen in the next week. We’re working on a plan but it may not work. But look at it this way: if he thought he could get to you, he would’ve already _tried_.”  
  
“I… Huh.” She nods slowly, thinking it through. “I suppose… maybe he thought that beaming into a room full of four MACOs and a m—an augment with superhuman senses was a bad idea.” She cracks a weak smile. “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t think.”  
  
“Hey, I understand, I was spooked enough when he showed up in my chair. And besides—maybe he’s on our side, just this once.” She raises an eyebrow at that and I grimace. “Yeah, didn’t think so either. Are you going to be good?”  
  
“I’m… I think so, ma’am.” She shudders a bit. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”  
  
I shake my head and wave a hand at the door. “Open-door policy, forget it. Oh, and Lieutenant? Fix your skin before you head out, it’s still grey.”  
  


* * *

  
The Bok globule designated NGC-76113 is a cloud of dark gas just off our course along the Republic border, a black patch a little under a light-year across set against the bright blue blur of the Azure Nebula visible through the warp field. I reach for the intercom. “All hands, all hands, this is the Captain. Sound yellow alert, secure ship for combat.” The indicator lights correspondingly flick from blue to yellow as a tone plays on the speakers. “Stay frosty, people.”  
  
Thirty tense minutes pass. At thirty-one I call down to the galley to have them send up some coffee and sandwiches. I’m munching on a BLT when Lieutenant Esplin calls out, “Captain, I’m picking up a distress signal!”  
  
“Details!”  
  
“She claims to be the SS _Gann vesh Wek_, a Tellarite-flagged private mining ship. They say they’ve had a computer failure seine-fishing for trace elements in the cloud and can’t get their warp drive back up.”  
  
“Conn, change course. All hands to battle stations.”  
  
“You sure, El?” Biri asks. “It’s a plausible story, I’ve got a record of just such a ship.”  
  
“Of _course_ it’s a trap,” Gaarra growls dismissively. “The timing’s too close to be a coincidence.”  
  
“So what do we do, ma’am?” Park asks.  
  
Tess smiles nastily. “Spring the trap.”  
  


* * *

  
Planetside, even on a clear day you can see the air itself blurring and blueing distant mountains. Being inside a nebula is kind of like that. The particle density is high enough to affect light, but up close it doesn’t look like fog like you see in Jachin Province or Hollywood.  
  
A Bok globule is denser than most. It’s a star nursery, an embryonic solar system that might birth a new civilization billions of years after we’re all long dead and forgotten. But more to the point, the particles are bigger, big enough to cause serious damage to a ship moving faster than light, and the navigational deflector is working full-time.  
  
“There’s an awful lot of interference in here,” Master Chief Wiggin adds to my thoughts from the sensor console. “Hang on.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I’ve got a definite metallic signature at the coordinates of the distress signal. Make it eleven degrees off the starboard bow, thirty-eight AUs ahead.”  
  
“Continue to scan the area. Park, adjust course, bring us out a hundred klicks off him. Esplin, is the interference affecting comms?”  
  
“Not at the moment, ma’am,” the magenta Saurian says. “Hailing channel?”  
  
“You read my mind.” I wait for her signal, then issue the hail. “SS _Gann vesh Wek_, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship _Bajor_ responding to your distress signal. Do you copy, over?”  
  
I wait for a tense moment, then a gravelly male voice, tinny with interference, responds. “_USS _Bajor_, this is Captain Thraka gasch Kull. Good to hear from you, Captain. What’s your ETA, over?_”  
  
“We’re there now, over.” Park smoothly brings us out of warp right on target, the other ship an almost invisible pinprick that Wiggin drops a reticle on and magnifies. I eye the design. “Well, no wonder they’re having computer problems, it’s a Yoyodyne product.” Gaarra gives a bark of laughter and Tess chuckles. “Esplin, you got a voice analysis for that Tellarite?”  
  
“A voice analysis? Uh, fairly high levels of stress and relief, but under the circumstances—”  
  
“I _mean_ is he the real thing, Lieutenant?”  
  
“I have no way of knowing that, ma’am: we haven’t got any recordings of Captain Kull.”  
  
“Guys, life signs?”  
  
Gaarra answers, “I’ve confirmed thirteen humanoid life-forms. She’s got a listed crew of eight, but that ship hasn’t been through a regulated checkpoint since before the war.”  
  
“These tramp freighters are a nightmare, ma’am,” Wiggin grumbles.  
  
“_Phekk._ All right, bring us closer. Ahead one-half impulse.”  
  
We close the distance rapidly and the blocky ship quickly grows bigger on the screen. I squeeze my armrests hard, glaring out at the blackness.  
  
Then Wiggin leans forward suddenly and I’m snapping the order before he can even say anything: “Take evasive action! Give me cams!”  
  
Park slams the rudder hard to starboard and guns it as the holocamera on our starboard side catches a ripple in space, resolving into a dark shape, thin downswept wings with petals spreading from the dorsal side.  
  
“Uzaveh’s balls,” Tess breathes, “that’s a—”  
  
It is.  
  
A shockwave of green light ripples by, missing the stern by barely a hundred thirty meters. The _Scimitar_-class dreadnought screams out of the void, its broadside mounts raining green hellfire on our aft shields.  
  
“Shields at 87 percent! Weapons locked, returning fire!” Lances of orange snap out from the aft phasers and Tess sends a salvo of torpedoes in his direction as the warbird comes about.  
  
“_I’m sorry, Captain!_” Captain Kull radios. “_They’ve got my wife and daughter in the hold!_”  
  
“Turn that off! “Medical team to the bridge! Park, full impulse, get some distance on him!”  
  
_Phekk_ me. They have a _Scimitar_-class. How the _phekk_ can they have a _Scimitar_-class? “Get an ID on that ship!”  
  
A barrage of plasma torpedoes courses in. One misses, Tess downs three with the phasers, but the other half bang one, two, three, four into our shields and the bridge shakes. “Aft shields at sixty percent!” she bellows over the howl of a hull-breach alarm from one of the consoles. “Casualties in Astrometrics!”  
  
“I got her, El!” Gaarra yells. “ChR 21206, IRW _Firestorm_. That ship was reported destroyed in ‘84!”  
  
“Obviously not! Esplin, send a distress signal, and send a broadcast on all frequencies!”  
  
“Ready, ma’am!”  
  
“Headlock! Repeat, headlock!” The bridge shudders again. “Park, you got room to flip us?”  
  
“I do… _now!_” He yanks back on his sticks and _Bajor_ rears up. Another volley of torpedoes streaks past beneath us and more disruptor fire ripples against the fresher dorsal shields.  
  
“All dorsal batteries, fire!” Tess gets off three blasts from the five dorsal strips as we pass through “vertical” but the dreadnought barely seems to notice. Then we’re through the flip, the upside-down _Firestorm_’s running lights barely visible at this range. Tess hits him again, again. “Use the heavy stuff!”  
  
“Loading neutronic torpedoes! Firing!” Five purple bolts join the orange streams heading out, criss-cross and mix with the green hailstorm coming in.  
  
“Gaarra, all power to forward shield, switch life-support power to phasers!”  
  
“On it!”  
  
Dammit, gotta even the odds somehow. “Kinlo, can you—”  
  
“Forget it, Captain,” the Klingon yells over another barrage, “I already tried it! Broke the firewall but all the control systems are isolated!”  
  
“Forward shields at fifty-three percent!”  
  
What feels like a secondary explosion jolts the bridge as we hurtle past close enough to make out viewports on the warbird; a few tiles fall from the ceiling. “Engineer, damage report!”  
  
Bynam sends back, “_Ma’am, we’ve lost two maneuvering thrusters and the starboard nacelle is in emergency shutdown! Fire suppression systems are online but we’ve taken heavy casualties!_”  
  
“Captain, we’re being hailed!”  
  
“Onscreen!”  
  
A deathly pale, white-haired Romulan with a mouth that looks like it’s been punched a few too many times takes up the inset on the screen. “_This is _Riov _Agathon tr’Hathe. You’re good but you can’t win this, _Riov _Kanril. Stand down and I promise your death will be quick and painless._”  
  
“_Imirrhlhhs’ehu!_” I shout at him.  
  
“_Well, that was rude. You’ll wish you had—_” Esplin breaks the connection before I can tell her to.  
  
The ship shudders as we close. Disruptor fire spatters across our shields, more fire than we can possibly return.  
  
But even in the dark, there’s always hope. “Captain,” Wiggin says, “we’re doing more damage than it looks like. He’s got all his shields shifted forward.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Captain,” Tess asks, “what are you smiling about?”  
  
“I have additional ships decloaking astern of the _Firestorm_!”  
  
“_That_, Tess!” Three blue-black crescents erupt from the nothingness, spitting a hail of phaser fire and torpedoes into the dreadnought’s unprotected engine nacelles. The warbird’s shields shift aft, but in that brief moment the damage is done: it can’t maneuver, its engine section is in flames. Park brings us past the ship and the trio of destroyers forms up behind us. “Target the reactor and give me comms. Colonel tr’Hathe, this is Captain Kanril. I will accept your immediate and unconditional surrender.”  
  
Then the ship’s singularity core detonates and the warbird vanishes into its own artificial black hole. “_Phekk_, he self-destructed. Conn, get us clear.”  
  
Everybody’s staring at me. “Ma’am, who exactly are those people?” Tess finally asks.  
  
I grin. “My friend in Starfleet Intelligence. Esplin, cancel the distress signal and contact the lead ship on Tac Two.”  
  
“Uh, channel open.”  
  
“_Artemisia_ Actual, this is _Bajor_ Actual. Good to see you, Tia.”  
  
The screen flips to a carrot-topped commander with white shoulders and a black divisional stripe. “_Nice to see you again, too, Eleya. Wish it was under better circumstances._”  
  
“Commander—”  
  
“Tess, I tutored her at the Academy, it’s okay.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“I heard about Sobaru, Tia. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral.” She smiles briefly. “I’m curious, how’d you manage to convince Admiral Yagami to let you bring two more _Phantom_s? I mean, not that I don’t appreciate the backup, he probably would’ve…”  
  
Tia has a weird look on her face. “_Umm… would you believe me if I said I saw it happen?_” she asks.  
  
I squint at her for a second. “Come again?”  
  
“_I’m serious,_” Tia replies. “_I had a… I’m not sure whether it’s a nightmare or a vision… about three days before you contacted me, where the Albino destroyed your ship. I just couldn’t let it be, and when you sent me that info… I knew I had to act._”  
  
“Uh. All right.” Probably bad luck or something to question a gift from the Prophets.  
  
“_Only thing I wondered was how you planned to use ‘headlock’ in a sentence, but I guess you weren’t._” I snort at that. “_Are things under control here?_”  
  
“For the most part, but fan out and make sure the Albino didn’t leave any surprises behind. Park, take us back to the _Wek_.” I hit the intercom again. “Connor, get your team to the transporter room. You’ve got a hostage rescue to deal with, then we can all go home.” I switch the call to Engineering. “Bynam, how long before you can have the warp drive back up?”  
  
“_Give me thirty minutes, I can get you warp 7, but I wouldn’t go higher than that without a pit stop._”  
  
“All right, I’ll ask Tia for a tow. Out.” I feel a tap at my shoulder. “What’s up, Master Chief?”  
  
Kinlo hands me a PADD. “Ma’am, I got this off the _Firestorm_ before she blew.”  
  
I take the PADD. “I thought you said—”  
  
“I said the _controls_ were hardware-isolated. This is from the memory core. Dossiers on known Federation spies and some of the pointy-ears’ double agents.”  
  
“Quite a coup.” I quickly skim over the data. “Wait, that’s—”  
  
“Yeah, it is.”  
  
I slowly grin as the missing piece of the plan falls into place. “_majQa’, qInlo._”  
  


* * *

  
_Thirty-six hours later._  
  
I jerk awake again. “Good evening, Captain Kanril,” Franklin Drake says.  
  
“You’re in my chair again.”  
  
“And I see you’re wearing more clothes this time.”  
  
“I happen to _like_ having nothing but my man with me in bed, not that it’s any of your business, _ye’phekk maktal kosst amojan_.”  
  
“Is the profanity really necessary?”  
  
“You used me.”  
  
“I hardly think so,” he retorts. “If anything, _you_ used _my_ information. The Albino wanted you dead. We wanted _him_ dead, I’m sure you wanted to _live_…” He gestures at me.  
  
“Really?” I push the covers off and stand, grabbing a bathrobe from the hook on my door.  
  
“Yes, really. And you got to rescue the hostages, using _my_ extremely expensive prototype, no less. Everyone goes home happy. Well, except the Albino of course.”  
  
I chuckle grimly at that. “You know, Drake, funny thing about those Tal’Shiar assassinations, Colonel tr’Hathe’s targets.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Most of them, like General t’Nerul, the benefit’s pretty obvious: the current praetor hates the Tal’Shiar. Hell, he even allied with the Republic to go on the offensive against them. But exactly what do they gain by killing the Cardassian ambassador?” I watch his face for any sign of dawning comprehension but don’t see any. “Ambassador Panar’s work didn’t have anything to do with the Tal’Shiar: the postwar constitution bans the Cardies from using military force outside their own borders unless threatened. But you know who did benefit?”  
  
“Enlighten me.”  
  
“Yoyodyne Division.” There, _that_ time he twitched. “The Cardies weren’t parties to the Khitomer Summit. Ambassador Panar was trying to open a hole in a tax barrier so the Belorejal Group could bid on an upgrade project for the Temer Shipyard. But he dies, the deal crumbles, and the Senate hires Yoyodyne.”  
  
He chuckles. “So you followed the money.”  
  
“Actually my chief of security, Lieutenant Korekh, followed it. He used to be a constable, you know.”  
  
“Impressive. It benefits the Federation _and_ the Romulans,” he points out. “Belorejal’s never done a job that big.”  
  
“And Yoyodyne _phekk_s up every job that big,” I retort. “I’m not sure that’s an improvement.”  
  
“And it’s an economic boost to the Federation—”  
  
“At the cost of an _allied ambassador’s life!_ But I’m reasonably sure that wasn’t the point.”  
  
“Enlighten me again.”  
  
“You boys in Section 31 get funding from Yoyodyne. You’re stacked fifty deep with front companies—in direct violation of federal securities regulations, I might add—but Dul’krah and Master Chief Kinlo cracked them. Several of the principals are on SI’s list of suspected Section 31 associates and they include a board member’s niece. And I believe that wasn’t the first time Ambassador Panar had gotten in their way: there was that amusement park renovation in New Lakarian City. So you leaked his itinerary to the Tal’Shiar and planted evidence linking him to Senator tr’Vreenak’s assassination by the Dominion; Romulan love of payback did the rest.”  
  
He purses his lips and nods. “Clearly I underestimated you.”  
  
“Don’t let the pretty face fool you.” I smile in a way I know accentuates the scar on my cheek, especially in the dark. “You won’t get away with this.”  
  
Drake stands, giving me another oily smirk. “_Please._ I ‘get away’ with operations like this all the time.” My door hisses open and Drake throws me one last snide comment as he turns. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, C—”  
  
“Hi, Frankie.” A royally pissed-off crew-cut brunette socks Drake in the chest, and he goes flying backwards a good two meters with the _crack_ of a busted rib. “I’ll ‘prototype’ you, motherf*cker… Move in, boys!”  
  
Drake only manages a weak groan as Connor lifts him off the ground by his leather shirt one-handed and turns so that Lieutenant Korekh can cuff him. “Bet that felt good,” I comment, grinning.  
  
She’s smiling from ear to ear. “You have no _idea_, ma’am.” Drake makes another cross between a gasp and a whimper. “I think he needs a trip to sickbay before we throw his ass in the brig?”  
  
“Sure, just let me get the list of charges. Dul’krah?”  
  
Korekh tosses me a PADD. I tap it on and scroll through the list. “Connor, show him over here and make sure he’s conscious.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“You… you can’t do this,” wheezes Drake. “You can’t just have my weapon manhandle a Federation citizen like this—OW!” he snaps at Dul’krah yanking a set of zip-cuffs taut over his wrists.  
  
“‘Your weapon’, _my crew_. And it feels kind of funny to rub it in your face that the sixteen million credits—”  
  
“Seven _billion_, it was just the successful experiment—” Connor slaps him, probably not hard enough to bust his jaw.  
  
“—you spent on turning a Federation officer into a weapon are right here in front of you and you’re _never_ going to take advantage of _her_ ever again.” I flip screens on the PADD until I find what I need. “Right. Rutherford Lynn Weiner—”  
  
He gapes. “How did you—”  
  
“—alias ‘Franklin Drake’, under the authority of the Federation Starfleet I’m hereby placing you under arrest pending transport to federal district court. You are charged with illegal genetic experimentation, misuse of government resources, sending a false distress signal, criminal negligence leading to combat loss of Starfleet assets, espionage, conspiracy to commit murder… Oh, and two counts of trespassing.”  
  
“‘Trespassing’?” Connor reluctantly passes the confused Weiner over to Dul’krah, who holds him just a bit more firmly than absolutely necessary.  
  
“Well, you’re _here_, aren’t you?” Petty Officer Kallio stifles a laugh.  
  
“Rrrrr, very _funny_. You _know_ this will never get as far as a trial.”  
  
“You know, you’re probably right about that,” I agree in a thoughtful tone. “I hear Admiral zh’Zoarhi wants your wedding tackle on a platter for that listening post in First City whose cover you blew. If I were you, I’d turn state’s evidence.”  
  
As I finish my remarks Weiner jerks his zip-cuffed hands free of the big alien and smacks something on his belt with a wince as his rib stresses.  
  
Dul’krah takes hold of Weiner’s arm again, squeezing hard enough that the human hisses in pain. “If you wish to injure yourself further, I suggest you try slamming your head against the brig walls.”  
  
“Wh—”  
  
“Having performance issues?” I say conversationally. “You know, I hear it affects one in five males.” Now Kallio is openly sniggering and the other MACOs are hiding grins. Even Dul’krah’s mouth is twitching. “That transwarp beaming trick of yours,” I continue, “_really_ convenient way to get one, maybe two humanoids in and out of tight areas, but it’s got a few issues. It’s really bad for the service life of the Heisenberg compensators and, uh, it takes even less effort than a normal transporter to render it completely useless, just a little tiny exotic particle burst.” I smile sweetly at him. “If you’re curious I’m sure Commander Riyannis can explain it in more detail than I can. Korekh, strip-search him in case he has any more little surprises, and make sure there’s at least four armed guards you know personally watching his cell at all times.”  
  
“Six, ma’am. I am aware of how to handle a flight-risk.”  
  
“Move out, then.”  
  
“You’ll never get away with—”  
  
“Oh, gag him, too, would you? Some of us need our beauty sleep.”  
  
“Can I come in now, honey?” Gaarra asks from the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler characters:
> 
>   * Colonel Agathon "the Albino" tr'Hathe, CO, IRW _Firestorm_/ch'R _Llaiir'hvei'khenn_: Ron Perlman 
>   * Commander Tiana Lanstar, CO, USS _Artemisia_: Maryke Hendrickse


End file.
